fishless cycling tank

[J'adore]

i am new to this and it does not seems to working.. so i am kind of stuck.
a 30cm cube tank (i know it isnt big) hoping to house shrimps, using ada new amazonia. i didnt feed ammonia source to cycle bcos i thought that ada amazonia is releasing it (am i wrong to think this way?). so i let it runs with HOB and sponge filter, having drift wood, hornwort and moss ball. using seachem prime and stability. this was set up around 16 apr, but until now ammonia is not going below 1 (stuck at 0.5~1) and 0 nitrite, about 10 nitrate. and yes, even after water change of 50% it didnt goes down, so i dont know what to do already..

[Urban Aquaria]

Your tank is still in the midst of cycling, so just have to wait until the beneficial bacteria colonies in your tank and filter multiply and grow large enough to handle the nitrifying process. Some tanks cycle slower, some faster... there is no fixed duration as it all depends on the setup, so you just have to be patient.

How much ADA Amazonia aquasoil did you use? If you used more soil, it will also release more ammonia for a longer period of time, so have to wait longer for it to cycle.

If you are not focusing on growing a high density of plants (which ADA Amazonia aquasoil is actually designed for) and mainly just cycling the tank to keep shrimps, then simply do more frequent large water changes to flush out the excess ammonia, that can help to reduce the ammonia content quicker and allow the beneficial bacteria to process the remaining amounts faster.

The size and efficiency of your filter also matters, the more bio-media there is available to house beneficial bacteria the better. The key is to avoid limiting their population due to insufficient bio-available space for them to live on. Larger beneficial bacteria populations process ammonia much faster than smaller populations.

[tetrakid]

Make sure you don't use any tap water straight from the tap. In the early stage, there's only a few bacteria, and tap water will kill the few bacteria.
if you didn't use any tap water for the WC, then follow UA's advice be patient and wait longer for the bacteria culture to grow.

[J'adore]

Thanks for the response

I think I over did on the soil, I pour the entire packet (holy~ it gonna take months)
It's running on dophine h-200 filter claim to be 250L/hr, is it not sufficient? I also added a fine and coarse pads into it. The sponge filter I did a DIY with k1 media moving bed. Or should I just remove and use those twin sponge filter instead?

I always fill the 1.5L bottle with tap water, then put seachem prime only then pour into the tank. Will it still be harmful?


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[Urban Aquaria]

Thanks for the response

I think I over did on the soil, I pour the entire packet (holy~ it gonna take months)
It's running on dophine h-200 filter claim to be 250L/hr, is it not sufficient? I also added a fine and coarse pads into it. The sponge filter I did a DIY with k1 media moving bed. Or should I just remove and use those twin sponge filter instead?

I always fill the 1.5L bottle with tap water, then put seachem prime only then pour into the tank. Will it still be harmful?

Wow, okay that's a lot of soil... yeah, a 9 liter bag of ADA aquasoil is usually used for filling a 2ft tank, so a 1ft cube tank should just use half. A whole bag of the soil works out to almost 1/3 of the 1ft cube tank volume.

One option is to remove half the soil volume (or more), that would greatly reduce the amount of ammonia being released and free up extra space for more water volume. Just air dry the removed soil and store it for future usage or for use in other tanks.

The other option is to just keep doing lots of large water changes until most of the excess ammonia is flushed out.

Your filter flow rate is okay, though hang-on filters have relatively limited space to put bio-media, so you can try to maximise the limited space with bio-media that have higher external and internal surface areas to house beneficial bacteria, can look at products like Seachem Matrix.

The sponge filter DIY with K1 media moving bed chamber is actually a very effective system, it's mainly for biological filtration though, so you'll still need another filter (like your hang-on filter with its layer of fine white filter wool) to trap small debris and particles filtered from the tank.

[J'adore]

I think I will consider removing the excess soil.
As for the matrix, I did read about that, and the reason I didn't purchase that was its too huge bottle for me, and I also worry the matrix couldn't fit in the remaining space.

By the way, do I still add seachem stability?


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[tetrakid]

Thanks for the response
....... I always fill the 1.5L bottle with tap water, then put seachem prime only then pour into the tank. Will it still be harmful?

When starting out, it is not advisable to add too much chemical conditioners such as Prime because it can upset the chemical properties of the water which in turn will affect the bacterial growth. It is preferable to keep a reserve container (eg. a jerican) of aged water for WC/top up.

[Urban Aquaria]

I think I will consider removing the excess soil.
As for the matrix, I did read about that, and the reason I didn't purchase that was its too huge bottle for me, and I also worry the matrix couldn't fit in the remaining space.

By the way, do I still add seachem stability?

Yeah, the hang-on filter wouldn't be able to contain the entire contents of a 1 litre bottle of Matrix, but at least it can hold a good portion of it... the spare media can be kept in storage (in case you upgrade to a larger filter or canister filter).

Another idea is to put the spare media into a mesh bag and just position it in the path of the filter flow, beneficial bacteria can still grow on it too, helps increase the total surface areas in the tank for them to live in.

You can still continue dosing Seachem Stability, though it's not so necessary since your cycle is already in progress and you are not planning to add in any livestock yet.

[Jimmy]

You can buy 500ml bottled Matrix instead, saw it's available @ Seaview recently.

[J'adore]

When starting out, it is not advisable to add too much chemical conditioners such as Prime because it can upset the chemical properties of the water which in turn will affect the bacterial growth. It is preferable to keep a reserve container (eg. a jerican) of aged water for WC/top up.

oh, i understand that now. but i do not have jerican at moment and could only use those limited number of 1.5L bottles.

Yeah, the hang-on filter wouldn't be able to contain the entire contents of a 1 litre bottle of Matrix, but at least it can hold a good portion of it... the spare media can be kept in storage (in case you upgrade to a larger filter or canister filter).

Another idea is to put the spare media into a mesh bag and just position it in the path of the filter flow, beneficial bacterial can still grow on it too, helps increase the total surface areas in the tank for them to live in.

You can still continue dosing Seachem Stability, though it's not so necessary since your cycle is already in progress and you are not planning to add in any livestock yet.

you mean placing the bag of matrix at the output of the filter?? O.O i have never thought of that, but i am imagining it now.

[tetrakid]

oh, i understand that now. but i do not have jerican at moment and could only use those limited number of 1.5L bottles

No problem, as long as you have enough bottles. Another thing, make sure you don't fill the bottles right to the top and do not cap it. Always leave a wide area of space at the bottle top to allow the chlorine gases to escape overnight, better a few days/nights.

[J'adore]

You can buy 500ml bottled Matrix instead, saw it's available @ Seaview recently.

Wow that's far more afraid of the size of matrix stone size, of cos even 500ml is still a lot. Thanks for your info

No problem, as long as you have enough bottles. Another thing, make sure you don't fill the bottles right to the top and do not cap it. Always leave a wide area of space at the bottle top to allow the chlorine gases to escape overnight, better a few days/nights.

I didn't know it will help by leaving the cap off, but won't it have mosquitoes breeding? I did read that putting air tube to oxygenate is even better, just I don't have spare output on my pump at the moment.



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[Urban Aquaria]

Its still better to use Prime to de-chlorinate the tap water... just aging the water on its own only off-gas the chlorine content, but the chloramine content is more stable and will still be present in the water, so its not as effective.

I've tested cycling a tank with just aged tap water vs using prime treated tap water... the tank that used only aged water took noticeably longer to cycle (compared to the tank that used prime treated water), mainly due to the residual chloramines still suppressing a portion of the beneficial bacteria population at every water change.

[J'adore]

If in the event I didn't age enough water or didn't age long enough, is it still ok to treat with prime then add into the tank?


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[Dscheng]

No problem with tap water with Prime. Just be patient and let it cycle.

[Bern C]

I didn't know it will help by leaving the cap off, but won't it have mosquitoes breeding? I did read that putting air tube to oxygenate is even better, just I don't have spare output on my pump at the moment.

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Mosquito will look for infusoria rich water or aged water. They rarely lay eggs on clean water as their larvae will not have food. But they do practice cannibalism, bigger larvae feed on smaller larvae if there's no food left.
Don't need to worry much as long as your water is clean without anything rotting inside. But hor be wary if you have driftwood or any rough surface sticking out of the water as it will attract aedes to lay eggs on the rough surface.

Too bad it's illegal to breed mosquito in Singapore else will have cheap source of fish food. =X Guppy like them a lot. XD

[J'adore]

No problem with tap water with Prime. Just be patient and let it cycle.

Good to know that

Mosquito will look for infusoria rich water or aged water. They rarely lay eggs on clean water as their larvae will not have food. But they do practice cannibalism, bigger larvae feed on smaller larvae if there's no food left.
Don't need to worry much as long as your water is clean without anything rotting inside. But hor be wary if you have driftwood or any rough surface sticking out of the water as it will attract aedes to lay eggs on the rough surface.

Too bad it's illegal to breed mosquito in Singapore else will have cheap source of fish food. =X Guppy like them a lot. XD

Thanks for telling me that. Lucky I don't have it sticking out. Yes I read that there are people go breed them for fishes. Though I don't have that problem for now, I have ditritus worms problem.. It's swimming in the water and I can't get that out.

Also I have a used eheim 2213 from a friend who threw everything except for that. And I don't have intention to use it..


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[Bern C]

No problem~ XD I did accidental bred some larvae when I was soaking driftwood. Then wait for the larvae large enough and fed it to my fish. But later I scare NEA inspection so I stopped. Actually mozzie is quite blind, just cover 80% of the container and they can't find the water source. XD Unless the smell of the water is too rich and attractive.

Yeah I have detritus worms too.. but I dunno if they are detritus worm or not. Mine don't hide in the soil but hiding at the corner of my tank slightly above the water level. XD Or maybe it's from the potting soil. I have no idea... It's white but when many congregate together it looks light pinkish red.

I think you can try soak your canister in bleach + water or vinegar then baking powder water to remove the vinegar residue? For the bleach quite risky cos need to wash till you remove the bleach and dechlorinate it. XD do some research 1st cos I not very sure too.

[tetrakid]

If in the event I didn't age enough water or didn't age long enough, is it still ok to treat with prime then add into the tank?

UA has already answered that above. Using Prime is good, as Chloramine is also deadly. Just make sure you don't overdose with Prime, otherwise you will complicate matters.

Using a air stone to treat your water is a good idea too, but better to do it with a large container so it's more worth it.

For bottles, you can use some cotton wool or tissue to prevent mosquitoes laying eggs. The idea is to let the air circulate. A lot of things in fish keeping are actually common sense.

[tetrakid]

Too bad it's illegal to breed mosquito in Singapore else will have cheap source of fish food. =X Guppy like them a lot. XD

Ya, especially Bettas. They enjoy it a lot. Long ago there used to be a lot of mosquito larvae and big Daphnia in ponds everywhere to be netted.