Cycling in 10 days ?!

[BenHehle Beamz]

I started my IBC NFT system, 1000 l capacity exactly 8 days  ago. I try to do fishless cycling and see how long it takes to get NO3. Well, thats what came out.

Procedure: Add NH4+ Solution into system, later on Nitrobacter/Nitrosomas. RESULT so far:

Day 1:

Ammonia - 1 ppm (added later more NH4+ Sol.  to reach level of 4 ppm)

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 0

ph - 7.6

 

Day 2:

Ammonia - 4 ppm

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - 0

ph - 7.6

 

Day 5:

Ammonia - 4 ppm

Nitrite - 1 ppm

Nitrate - 0

ph - 7.5

 

Day 7:

Ammonia - 1 ppm

Nitrite - 1 ppm

Nitrate - 5 ppm

ph - 7.6

 

Day 8:

Ammonia - 0,5 ppm

Nitrite - 1 ppm

Nitrate - 10 ppm

ph - 7.6

 

Well, what i miss is the Nitrite level peak, maybe this peak occur only some hours and i missed to meassure it, but fact is my Nitrate level is there where i want to have it. My question.....would you add fish (tilapia) to the system at this stage?

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi  BenHehle,

Good going!. Well I thought that I was the only one on this forum to cycle in 10 days but i see you also did it. What i did after this point(where you are now) was to continue to dose between 4 and 5 ppm ammonia for another week. By the last few days I was getting a zero to .25 ppm reading for ammonia in roughly 12 hours. This way i made sure the bacterial colonies were at peak for the media ratio in my system. I could have added fish safely at the same stage you're at right now but I wanted to ensure a strong nitrifying resident colony. You can or you don't have to, it's up to you. If you're going to wait you'll have to continue to dose with ammonia but add fish only when you have a zero ammonia/nitrite reading.

[TCLynx]

You have nitrates now but that doesn't mean you are totally cycled up.  You want to be able to dose your system to some amount of ammonia (I usually dose to between 1-2 ppm for this test) and have both ammonia and nitrite down to 0 within 24 hours, then you can say you are fishlessly cycled up and I would add fish after I was able to get back to 0 on the ammonia and nitrite in 24 hours.

[BenHehle Beamz]

thank you for your help. well, what i saw is that my water in the ibc tank changed into green color. its blooming phytoplankton......now im not sure anymore if the deacrease of ammonia comes from the bacteria or by the phytoplankton. Well, if i think logicially then the bacterias are doing their work, otherwise there would be no NO2 and no NO3. hmm....well, i will follow your advice, raise the ammonia level and see if it decrease back to 0 in 24 hours. I will do that on monday, and let you know then. thanx again for your help :D

[TCLynx]

wrap that IBC tank up to block the light and it will limit the algae.