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Cycling planted tank question

M

Marco_Carvalho

Seedling
Joined
11 Mar 2017
Messages
14
Location
Portugal
Hello,

I got a 300L tank with 2 weeks. Fully planted: hygrophila's, p. Erectus, s. Repens, eleocharis mini, monte carlo, bucephalandra's, anubia's, etc...

In the beginning i haded some Jbl filter start (got 2 canister's 1500l/h each), some substrate bacteria from dennerle and also i did Seachem Stability 7 days as described in the bootle.

Got bacterial bloom right away... :p

Ammonia, the max i got was 0.25ppm during this 2 weeks, but for the last week i didn't had any ammonia reading. Nitrites and nitrates were always high till a yesterday. Now i have 1ppm nitrites and 0,25ppm nitrates.
Im doing 50% water change twice a week. After the water change, nitrites drop, but after a couple of hours it rise again.

Ah... i have 1 SAE, 2 Neritinas and 2 Amano's in the tank for almost one week without any casualties.

1) That bacterial bloom in the beginning was a bad thing?

2) The cycle is in the midle stage?

3) Why the fish, shrimp and snail didn't die with that high Nitrities? (I'm glad they didn't die!!!)

Thanks
 
Hi!

1. That was not a bacterial bloom in the right mean of it, just bacteria searching for substrate to fix on it. Probable you also seen some white-gray deposits on the gravel or stones. Those were bacterial colonies that disappear soon, after fix themselves in the filter medium and in the gravel.
2. The cycle process is far from mid because you make water changes. During cycling you should do no water change until amonia and nitritis stay for a few days to 0. Then after you can made a 50% water change, can consider cycling finished and tank ready for having fish. But you already have some fish, so you have only two options : i. to make daily small water changes (25-30%) that should keep tank on the good way of cycling but without loosing the fish or ii. to put away the fish and to wait for cycling to finish. It is up to you, but in first case will take more time. If nitrites rise back in terms of hours (are you sure?) then there is a serious problem with amonia. If amonia is very low then maybe is a problem with the water used for change. Check it too. Nitrites don't come from nowhere.
3. Of course they didn't die because you always decrease nitrites by changing water! But you also disturb the bacterial population and cycling process. On top of this, Amano are quit rezistent, also SAE.
 
@Silviu Man is right on spot.

Just want to add that plants prefer Ammonia and Nitrites (in that specific order) to Nitrates, since they are much easier to use/decompose as a Nitrogen source. This means that even if you get reads of 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrites in the first few weeks of a planted tank, it doesn't necessarily mean your tank has finished cycling, it probably just means plants are using it.

I usually get a dirty filter sponge from a cycled tank and put it in the new filter for the new tank, which is the best way to insert bacteria in the tank, but I still wait at least 4 weeks to stock the tank with fish, which is usually after I get 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrites for a week or two.

And I follow a tight Water Change schedule in the first few weeks as well:
  • 1st week - 50% daily WC
  • 2nd & 3rd week - 50% WC every other day
  • 4th & 5th week - 2 50% WC a week
  • 6th week and after - 50% weekly WC
 
Thanks a lot for the answers.

Today i tested again.

0,25ppm nitrites and 10mg/l nitrates. No ammonia.

Tomorrow i will do a 20% WC then see the results.
 
Could you not just dose some ammonia to a level around 3ppm and then 24 hours later test ammonia and nitrates, if the tank has cycled they should both read 0.
 
Hi all,
Marco_Carvalho said:
Now i have 1ppm nitrites and 0,25ppm nitrates........3) Why the fish, shrimp and snail didn't die with that high Nitrities? (I'm glad they didn't die!!!)
Click to expand...
You probably didn't have 0.5ppm NO2 or 0.25ppm NO3.

Nitrate (in particular) is quite difficult to test for accurately so the results are no better than a ball park figure at best.

I'd carry on with the water changes, planted tanks are never cycled in the way that a tank without plants would be.

Have a look at <"Do I need to cycle a planted ...."> and <"interesting blog">.

cheers Darrel
 
I tested again now and... no nitrites :eek:

I forgot to tell one thing. In the beginning i used 2 baskets of cycled media from my last canister. I think i made a mistake, someone told me that i made. I dismounted my old tank, a 100l planted, and just took off the hose from that canister and put away from one night, with all the media inside. Next day when i mounted the 300l and move those 2 baskets of media, to my new canisters, 1 basket each one. Those 2 new ones, got 2 baskets of foam, one basket of pumice and one basket with that old media.

Does it change anything? Someone told me that all the bacteria in that media died because didnt have o2...

doylecolmdoyle said:
Could you not just dose some ammonia to a level around 3ppm and then 24 hours later test ammonia and nitrates, if the tank has cycled they should both read 0.
Click to expand...

I don't have any ammonia to use.



Thanks
 
Last edited:
Marco_Carvalho said:
I don't have any ammonia to use.
Click to expand...

Buy some! its cheap, you can just use fish food but takes longer to break down into ammonia, in my post above I meant Ammonia and Nitrite should read zero 24hrs after adding the ammonia. Anyways perhaps you are cycled!
 
Hi all,
doylecolmdoyle said:
Buy some! its cheap,
Click to expand...
You don't need to test your system. Just keep the plants growing and regularly change some water.

There are a couple of potential problems with adding extra ammonia, one is that the assemblage of ammonia oxidising micro-organisms (Archaea & Bacteria) you have in your tank won't be the <"same as it would be in a tank with higher ammonia loadings">.

Once the tank has grown in, assuming you have enough dissolved oxygen, it will be capable of dealing with changes in the ammonia loading.

The other one is to do with test kits and testing, you can't really rely on the values you get from test kits. Water testing is a lot more problematic than most of the aquarium based forums would have you believe.

Have a look at @alto's posts in <"Best way to cycle a second..."> for some more discussion of testing and protocols for testing.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,I would think some of it has probably survived. I manage my tanks like that all the time, regular small volume water changes
Click to expand...

When you say regular. You mean weekly, daily, any other day...

Thanks for all your answers, i appreciate all the help you guys are giving me!!!
 
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