Having recently moved house I drained my tank, cleaned (almost) everything hard / inorganic and am starting again (mostly) from scratch.
The filtration is all new, so after replanting, the tank is getting "fishless cycled". So far the tank has been left entirely unsupervised while I was away for just over a week, exosed to normal daylight and with lighting for about 60W from T8s for 8hrs a day.
The substrate is Akadama and is the one thing that hasn't beed "cleaned". That was sat undisturbed in a covered bucket with enough old tank water to keep it wet for about 6 weeks. This was much longer than intended, but much to my surprise it obviously wasn't a totally unhealthy environment as, when I transfered the Akadama back into the tank I found 3 Amano Shrimp and several Assasin Sanils still alive that I hadn't managed to spot when I'd drained the tank.
Having replanted the tank (Crypt Wedti and Valis Spiralis from the old setup, and new Anubias Barteri, Eleocharis Acicularis and Taiwan Moss) I've filled it to about 150L of the 220 capacity. (I've struggled with Hair Grass before in such a deep, low tech tank, so wanted to get it started in shallower water so less light was absorped by water.)
Just over a week in, I've got round to buying NO2 and NO3 test solutions. The results are pleasing.
NO2 = 0ppm
NO3 = 10-15ppm
I didn't bother buying a NH4 test solution.
There has been some Crypt melt (IIRC this is to be expected when replanting Crypts) so there has been some decaying vegitation and the snails have been in the new setup, again contributing a tiny amount of waste. (The Shrimp have been housed in another smaller tank.)
So to the questions:
1) Is it more likely that there has been sufficient "friendly bacteria" alive in the Akadama to cycle the tank quickly, or insufficient NH4?
2) If I add some flake food, just to decay and provide NH4, how quickly could I hope to see meaningful results from the NO2 and NO3 tests, and what sort of quantity flake would be needed?
The filtration is all new, so after replanting, the tank is getting "fishless cycled". So far the tank has been left entirely unsupervised while I was away for just over a week, exosed to normal daylight and with lighting for about 60W from T8s for 8hrs a day.
The substrate is Akadama and is the one thing that hasn't beed "cleaned". That was sat undisturbed in a covered bucket with enough old tank water to keep it wet for about 6 weeks. This was much longer than intended, but much to my surprise it obviously wasn't a totally unhealthy environment as, when I transfered the Akadama back into the tank I found 3 Amano Shrimp and several Assasin Sanils still alive that I hadn't managed to spot when I'd drained the tank.
Having replanted the tank (Crypt Wedti and Valis Spiralis from the old setup, and new Anubias Barteri, Eleocharis Acicularis and Taiwan Moss) I've filled it to about 150L of the 220 capacity. (I've struggled with Hair Grass before in such a deep, low tech tank, so wanted to get it started in shallower water so less light was absorped by water.)
Just over a week in, I've got round to buying NO2 and NO3 test solutions. The results are pleasing.
NO2 = 0ppm
NO3 = 10-15ppm
I didn't bother buying a NH4 test solution.
There has been some Crypt melt (IIRC this is to be expected when replanting Crypts) so there has been some decaying vegitation and the snails have been in the new setup, again contributing a tiny amount of waste. (The Shrimp have been housed in another smaller tank.)
So to the questions:
1) Is it more likely that there has been sufficient "friendly bacteria" alive in the Akadama to cycle the tank quickly, or insufficient NH4?
2) If I add some flake food, just to decay and provide NH4, how quickly could I hope to see meaningful results from the NO2 and NO3 tests, and what sort of quantity flake would be needed?