Fishless Cycling

[Steve Werlin]

I just started the fishless cycling in my flood and drain system with diluted ammonia (ammonium hydroxide).  The bottle I bought at the hardware store doesn't say what the dilution is, and I'm not sure how much to add to get the water up to 2-4 ppm.

I have a 20 gallon fish tank and grow bed that holds (accounting for the displacement by the grow media) about 15 gallons of water before draining.

Any suggestions on how much ammonia to add each day to start the cycling?

[TCLynx]

TCLynx said:

Figuring out how much ammonia to use. This reminds me of a blog post by Sylvia some time back

case of the missing ammonia

Anyway, you could use a cup of water and start with drops of the ammonia to figure out how many drops of ammonia will bring a cup of water to your desired level.

Or maybe use a gallon of water and fractions of a teaspoon (keep track as you go) to figure out how much ammonia is needed to bring a measured amount of water to the desired level. Once you figure that you, just do the math to figure out how much ammonia you would need to dose your system with to bring it to the desired level.

 

If you do your test in a jar or jug, you can probably add the ammonia and then cap it and shake it up and wait a few minutes then do your test. Then if it isn't enough you can add another measured amount, shake again and test. It won't be supper accurate but I think it should be good enough to aim for a range between 2-4 ppm.

[Steve Werlin]

Well, after reading Sylvia's blog post, I'm officially worried.  I added in about 30 ml, which is apparently waaaaaay too much.  I've tested twice since adding it this afternoon, and both test came out clear.  I'm guessing I have overloaded the system.  Ugh.  I'm hoping this won't require a full dump and restart.  I haven't added my plants yet, but if I did, do you have any idea how long it would take to filter it out and bring the ammonia down to a level safe for fish?

TCLynx said:

TCLynx said:

Figuring out how much ammonia to use. This reminds me of a blog post by Sylvia some time back

case of the missing ammonia

Anyway, you could use a cup of water and start with drops of the ammonia to figure out how many drops of ammonia will bring a cup of water to your desired level.

Or maybe use a gallon of water and fractions of a teaspoon (keep track as you go) to figure out how much ammonia is needed to bring a measured amount of water to the desired level. Once you figure that you, just do the math to figure out how much ammonia you would need to dose your system with to bring it to the desired level.

 

If you do your test in a jar or jug, you can probably add the ammonia and then cap it and shake it up and wait a few minutes then do your test. Then if it isn't enough you can add another measured amount, shake again and test. It won't be supper accurate but I think it should be good enough to aim for a range between 2-4 ppm.

[TCLynx]

Even if you had only dosed to 4 ppm, it is likely to take many weeks to cycle the system up to be safe for fish.  If you have way over dossed then it can actually stall cycling and it could be months till you are safe to put in fish.  Try doing a dilution test to see how much of a water change you would need to do to get the ammonia down below 4 ppm.

Like take a sample of the system water and add 9 parts distilled water.  Then test the diluted mix then multiply the result by 10 to figure out what your actual ammonia level is.  For instance if the diluted reading is 2 ppm and the multiplied number comes to 20 ppm then you should do about a 90% water change.

[George]

Don't take this personally, but did you use both testing agents, bottle 1 and bottle 2?  That was my mistake.  If you are using the freshwater master kit, that is.

[Bobby McGovern]

On Sept 8 I began fishless cycling in my 300 gallons by adding 6 oz of ammonia.  The next day I added another 6 oz so now I had 12 oz in there.  My ammonia level has been wayyyyyy up there and wasn't budging until last week when I thought I was seeing maybe a little lighter shade of green on the color chart.  I was tempted to change out half the water this week.  Yesterday I tested it and it was down to ZERO.  The nitrites are high between 2 & 5 ppm.  The nitrates are over 80ppm.

I did throw my nephew's filter pad from his fish tank in the sump tank last week.

So, be patient.  In three weeks mine went from sky high and "oh my God, you added how much?" to zero..

[Steve Werlin]

I'm an idiot.  Thanks, George.

George said:

Don't take this personally, but did you use both testing agents, bottle 1 and bottle 2?  That was my mistake.  If you are using the freshwater master kit, that is.

[John Cubit]

So I think I am headed for a disaster, any thoughts or advice on the below situation would be appreciated.

We are at week 7

Fish are in tank

Plants are in the bed (cuttings and seeds)

Over the weekend I noticed brown spots on one of the fish.  It appears to be ammonia burns that are healing.  I have had the following readings

Ammonia 4 / pH 8 / Nitrite 2 / Nitrate 0 Temp 73

I checked again this morning and had this

Ammonia 4 / pH 8 / Nitrite 4 / Nitrate 2 Temp 74

The ammonia has been consistent at 4 and does not drop, ph the same.  Got this double Nitrite count but now getting Nitrates.  Vet says the brown is good in the fact the fish is healing but can not explain why no other fish is showing signs of Ammonia/Nitrite burns (apparently the condition is the same).  Coming from an aquaculture back ground we would just change 50% of the water and chem test the filter.

Well I have technically changed all the water over the past 3 days and everything stayed the same.  Now that I possibly could have slowed anything going on in the bed, I am at a loss as to what to do.

Should I remove the fish and let it run while the fish have r&r session in another tank, till everything drops, or let it cycle out as is?

Tank is 20 Gallon with 3 mid size comets and one small comet.

10 Gallon Growbed

475 Gph pump

Have not fed fish in over a week.  Need more info?  Plant cuttings are rooting and seeds are sprouting.  HELP.

[TCLynx]

Well since your nitrites are climbing, hopefully your ammonia will fall.  When changing the water, is there anything going on there that would have hurt the bacteria like chlorine?

If you have a cycled up tank that could take your fish, and you want to save those fish, then I would say rescue them since the next step is going to be sky high nitrites which are really bad for fish too.  If leaving the fish in the system, salt to between 1-3 ppt to try to help them a little bit but this next stage of cycling is hard.

Don't Feed.  Add extra aeration.

How is your system cycling?  is the pump on a timer?  or Siphon or constant flood?  If you are doing timed flood and drain, you might help the cycling along faster by just turning the pump on constant for a few days and letting the bed be constant flood.

[John Cubit]

TCLynx,

Nothing with the water as a matter of practice I test it before removing or adding any water.  So no chlorine, and our area uses no chloramine, and I know the tap water is Ammonia 0.

I have salted.  Did that yesterday at 3 ppt per instructions.

Flood and drain at 10 min fill 30 sec drain with bell siphon I can speed it up to 3 min fill 30 sec drain by adjust the flow valve, 

So it is possible that this is the proverbial peak and crash, before it stabilizes?

I have no intention on feeding these guys but they are showing very little sign of stress other than the one with ammonia burns.  Even that one is swimming around, they do huddle when the lights go out.  But they are a sitting mid column and no one is on the bottom or the top.

When you test your water do you sample from the bottom, mid or top?  In hatchery tanks we always tested in front of the filter pump at the bottom, but here I am testing the mid column range.

Thanks

[TCLynx]

With the ammonia up that high, I don't expect much visible difference between sample points.

In some situations I've tried sampling from different locations in my systems and sometimes I've found a trace of ammonia on the water coming out of the fish tank and no visible ammonia on water after the plant beds but that has normally been a difference of less than 0.2 ppm.

Yes this is the Spikes of cycling.  Hopefully there is no true crash for you, luckily goldfish are darn tough.

I'd say just hang in there, hold tight, keep adding more patience, keep testing and recording the results.  Hopefully the fish survive.

[John Cubit]

Thanks TC, just for safety's sake I am preparing a hospital tank.

TCLynx said:

With the ammonia up that high, I don't expect much visible difference between sample points.

In some situations I've tried sampling from different locations in my systems and sometimes I've found a trace of ammonia on the water coming out of the fish tank and no visible ammonia on water after the plant beds but that has normally been a difference of less than 0.2 ppm.

Yes this is the Spikes of cycling.  Hopefully there is no true crash for you, luckily goldfish are darn tough.

I'd say just hang in there, hold tight, keep adding more patience, keep testing and recording the results.  Hopefully the fish survive.

[TCLynx]

If you have a safe place for the fish to move to temporarily.  The little system can cycle past those spikes just fine without the fish in it.  Once the ammonia and nitrite both come back down below 1, you can then move one fish at a time back over into the system while it finishes settling.