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Cycling, AS

4K views 22 replies 11 participants last post by  Diana 
#1 ·
it's been a week of cycling my 60P, I have used filter media but it hasn't helped. ammonia and nitrate are high.

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm

I thought with the used media it would be cycled by now. I'm confused. I thought you shouldn't do water changes while cycling but now I'm reading to do one every other day. Should I start doing that?

If I do every other day water changes can I add fish?

Thank you.
 
#6 ·
You can go ahead and add a few females. The stress might be a little high if they don't know each other. Since bettas generally fight for the first few minutes to make a pecking order. With the ammonia it could add more stress, but if you're just buying them from the store and putting them straight into the tank, who's to say the water they're in right now isn't worse!?

I have a female sorority and love it! They're pretty hardy fish, so they should be alright.

Plants are great since they'll speed up the cycling! Little water changes are fine since there will be more than just one fish in the tank. :)
 
#8 ·
it's been a week of cycling my 60P, I have used filter media but it hasn't helped. ammonia and nitrate are high.

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm

I thought with the used media it would be cycled by now. I'm confused. I thought you shouldn't do water changes while cycling but now I'm reading to do one every other day. Should I start doing that?

If I do every other day water changes can I add fish?

Thank you.
Aqua soil requires(according to those who use it), water changes every couple day's for three or four week's, or ammonia it produces could be too much for plant's/bacteria and likely to feed algae bloom depending on light intensity/duration.
Add as many plant's a you can before considering fishes if the fishes health is primary concern.
If your adding ammonia in addition to the aqua soil,I would stop.
If I added anything other than more plant's,,it would be more used media from already mature aquarium .
would still perform water changes to try and keep ammonia down for reason's mentioned.
 
#9 ·
Aqua soil requires(according to those who use it), water changes every couple day's for three or four week's, or ammonia it produces could be too much for plant's/bacteria and likely to feed algae bloom depending on light intensity/duration.
Add as many plant's a you can before considering fishes if the fishes health is primary concern.
If your adding ammonia in addition to the aqua soil,I would stop.
Yep, no need to add ammonia with AS. It produces plenty on its own. With AS you want to do 50% or better water changes daily for the first week. Every other day for week two. Then every 3 or 4 days for week three. I would not add fish until ammonia and nitrite have reached zero. There's no need in subjecting the fauna to elevated levels of ammonia and nitrite. A little patience is all that is needed.
 
#11 ·
You have 2 cycles going on.

1) ADA products produce ammonia. It needs to do its thing, and nothing you can do will make it go any faster. It has nothing to do with whether you have nitrifying bacteria in there or not. It will not produce the ammonia faster or slower. Be patient.
Do enough water changes to keep the ammonia at roughly 3 ppm, and lower is not a problem. If you do a really big water change and the ammonia gets down below 1ppm, the bacteria will be just fine.

2) Growing nitrifying bacteria. Feeding them ammonia for about 3 weeks will grow a really big population, even if you started with no media to jump start the process. They will use the ammonia produced by the Aquasoil, but that soil can produce too much ammonia. Keep up the water changes. No matter how big or how small a population of bacteria you have, it will not change the fact that the soil will keep on producing ammonia. Use this opportunity to grow a really good colony of bacteria.
 
#12 ·
You can go ahead and add a few females. The stress might be a little high if they don't know each other. Since bettas generally fight for the first few minutes to make a pecking order. With the ammonia it could add more stress, but if you're just buying them from the store and putting them straight into the tank, who's to say the water they're in right now isn't worse!?

I have a female sorority and love it! They're pretty hardy fish, so they should be alright.

Plants are great since they'll speed up the cycling! Little water changes are fine since there will be more than just one fish in the tank.
I bought them all together and they've been living together so I'm thinking I'll add them.

I will begin to do daily water changes of 50%!

I have not been adding ammonia at all so hopefully things will be okay!

Thanks again everyone.
 
#13 ·
Well, no, you do not have to add ammonia over and above what the soil supplies. For 3-4 weeks it keeps on producing ammonia, and feeding the bacteria. Do water changes to keep the level of ammonia in the right range to grow the maximum bacteria. Your water change will get the ammonia down to or under 1 ppm, then the soil adds more ammonia to about 3 ppm, then you do another water change.

Aquasoil also has a tendency to remove the carbonates from the water.
This drops the pH.

Nitrifying bacteria do better with higher KH and higher pH.

Add potassium bicarbonate or sodium bicarbonate to keep the KH at least 3 German degrees of hardness, and higher is better. The bacteria will grow best if you can keep the pH at least in the upper 7s, and into the 8s is really good.
 
#15 ·
There are 2 reasons to do water changes.

1) The lower the ammonia level in the water, the more ammonia will come out of the soil.

2a) Too high ammonia slows the growth of nitrifying bacteria
2b) The ammonia removing bacteria will create way too much nitrite. Too high nitrite also slows the growth of nitrifying bacteria.

Optimum level of ammonia: should no go over 5 ppm for best growth of the nitrifying bacteria, and is better under 3 ppm to keep the NO2 under 5ppm.

Add the carbonates and keep the pH up for the optimum growth of the nitrifying bacteria. They quit growing when the water is too acidic, and lacks carbonates.

None of this has anything to do with ammonia vs ammonium. There are no fish in this tank.
 
#19 ·
Nitrifying Bacteria Facts

Water changes will help to reduce the concentration of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and replenish KH. Sodium Bicarbonate (bicarb soda) or Potassium Bicarbonate will raise KH + pH. There are numerous online calculators to show how much to add to the water.

Another good addition would be shell grit, crushed coral or similar calcium carbonate source. These dissolve slowly and provide a good stable source of KH.
 
#21 ·
I'm a little confused here, been out of the planted thing for a while, busy setting up dirted tank.
I understand the ammonium under pH7 vs ammonia above thing.

Our water is on the base side of the curve with quite a bit of calcium.
I am planning to grow glosso, and put some peat moss in the dirt layer, the idea is to buffer the pH down somewhat. Starting to wonder if that was the right thing to do... luckily it was just a dusting right at the bottom.
Would no nitrifying bacteria survive/establish under pH6?

I have no problem not putting fish in there, in fact I was planning to put some hydrophonic fertiliser I have left, in the tank.
I lost a small pond full of fish, when a load of runoff water, with that in, from hanging plants ended up in it... (like I said before, I've made every mistake in the book).
 
#23 ·
Aquasoil tends to remove the carbonates from the water. It can only do this for so long, then all the sites are used up and it quits. How long? How much can it hold? I do not know. I am more familiar with the montmorillonite clays (Turface, Safe-T-Sorb and Soil Master Select) which seem to have a great capacity for removing carbonates.

If it is your goal to keep very demanding soft water fish, and depend on the Aquasoil to remove the carbonates from the water, it can do this, but to maintain its capacity for the longest period of time you want to add the least possible amount of carbonates.
Do not do the fishless cycle in this tank, because the bacteria will not grow well. They prefer pH on the alkaline side of neutral, about 7.5-8 is optimum, 7-9 is acceptable during cycling. After the bacteria are established you can allow the pH to drop. At 6.5 the bacteria are less active, and by pH 6.0 they pretty much do not do anything. But to grow them you would have to add carbonates to the tank, and we are specifying that we do not want to do this.
When you do water changes in a tank where you will keep very demanding soft water fish use reverse osmosis or distilled water so you are not adding any more minerals or carbonates than the fish can handle, and so that the aquasoil will maintain its ability to remove carbonates for the longest possible time. I would also maintain a very low dose system of fertilizer in such a tank.

To cycle such a tank, I would
a) Do the fishless cycle and grow the bacteria elsewhere, for example in a bucket or another tank where the water chemistry can be made to suit the optimum growth of the bacteria
or
b) Buy a bottle of Nitrospira and overdose the aquasoil tank almost at the end of the aquasoil's cycle- when the ammonia is only showing perhaps .25ppm or less without having to do water changes. Just enough so the bacteria have a little food for a day or so, and you know the soil has pretty much quit producing ammonia. Then stock with the fish when the tests are showing no ammonia or nitrite, but within a couple of days of adding the Nitrospira.
or
c) Not bother growing bacteria. Depend on the plants to be the bio filter. Note that this is risky unless you know you can get the plants growing really well. If the plants are OK with the high levels of ammonia you could probably plant while the soil's cycle is going on, but some plants are not tolerant of very much ammonia, so do not plant these unless you can guarantee the ammonia will stay under 1 ppm.
 
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