Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Fishless Cycle Using Ammonia & SafeStart
- essjay (S Jackson)
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Just thought I'd log my fishless cycle using Ammonia (Enzo Household Ammonia 9.5%) and Tetra Safestart.
The tank setup is as follows:
Rio 400 with bottom sponges removed (from internal filter) and replaced with Siporax and some Coral Gravel. Upper sponges remain.
Substrate: 95% Coral Sand
Eheim 2329 Wet/Dry Canister filter with Eheim media.
Plenty of rocks of unknown type.
Fresh water with Stresscost to remove clorine etc.
My strategy is as follows:
Addition of X amount of NH3 until Ammonia level of 5ppm is achieved. This X amount of drops has to be added daily until NO2 spike. Afterwards follow up with 0.5 X (from previous step) amount of NH3 daily until NO2 is 0ppm causing NO3 peak. ~50% water change should follow. (Blatently taken from Cichlid Forum)
The unknown here is what will happen when the SafeStart is added. I expect the ammonia to break down fairly quickly, perhaps in 24/48 hours.
If anyone has any wisdom to contribute to this thread, please do so.
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: 0.00
Nitrate: 0.00
Ph: 8.0
GH: 4.00
Temperature: 27.49c
Initial readings before adding ammonia.
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 6.00
Nitrite: 0.00
Nitrate: 0.00
Ph: 8.1
GH: 4.00
Temperature: 27.40c
5pm - started adding Ammonia. I had to add 200ml of the Ammonia to reach 6ppm. This to me sounds like an awful lot. Considering the substrate, internal filter, rocks & background I estomate that there might be 300L in the tank. So 200ml of 9.5% ammonia sounds way too much. But that's what it took.....
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 4.00
Nitrite: 0.25
Nitrate: 0.00
Ph: 7.85
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.0c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 2.00
Nitrite: 0.50
Nitrate: 5.00
Ph: 7.65
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.0c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 8.00
Ph: 8.30
Temperature: 27.0c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 4.00
Nitrite: 2.00
Nitrate: 10.00
Ph: 7.8
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.0c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 4.00
Nitrite: 2.00
Nitrate: 5.00
Ph: 7.8
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.0c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Ammonia: 8.00+ (kit only goes up to 8)
Ph: 8.40
Temperature: 27.4c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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25/02/2007 11:01
Ammonia: 6.00
Nitrite: 3.5
Nitrate: 15.00
Ph: 7.9
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.1c
Kit 2
25/02/2007 13:37
Ammonia: 5.00+ (this kit only goes up to 5)
Nitrite: 3.3 - 33 (highest test colour on the kit)
Nitrate: 50.00
Ph: 7.9
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.2c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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25/02/2007 21:39
Ammonia: 4.00
Nitrite: 3.5
Nitrate: 20.00
Ph: 7.7
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.6c
Kit 2
25/02/2007 21:52
Ammonia: 5.00
Nitrite: 3.3 - 33 (highest test colour on the kit)
Nitrate: 50.00
Ph: 7.7
GH: 5.00
Temperature: 27.6c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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26/02/2007 19:38
Ammonia: 3.00
Nitrite: 2.0
Nitrate: 5.00
Ph: 7.9
GH: 7.00
Temperature: 26.7c
Kit 2
26/02/2007 20:01
Ammonia: 3.00
Nitrite: 3.3 - 33 (highest test colour on the kit)
Nitrate: 100.00
Ph: 7.9
GH: 7.00
Temperature: 26.8c
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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One or two posts with a means and an end instead of one every few minutes would have been sufficient.
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Most interesting here was the difference in test kits. I don't think I would add amonia to cycle a tank, but I still think the results are interesting.
Daragh
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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Maybe I was a little harsh. Sorry essjay.
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- Valerie (Valerie)
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Assumptions :
1./ If info not available at one point, assumed the same as previous reading
2./ The 2 kits don't seem to use the same unit, adjusted accordingly (pro rata on the basis that 60ppm = 3.36gH - Read in another post, I might be wrong)
Might be useful seeing trends ...
Regards,
Valerie
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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Yes some of the readings are a little strange. The two kits more or less agree on the Ammonia level and Nitrite to a lesser extent. Nitrate readings are completely different unless I'm going a bit colour blind. Thinking of getting a "third opinion kit" now.
I'm still concerned about the amount of Ammonia I'm adding to the tank. Even at 100ml, that should be 9.5ml of pure Ammonia if I'm reading the bottle correctly.
Anyways plod along. Will have another set of readings this evening. I'm expecting the Ammonia to be down to about 2ppm as the 100ml last night should have pushed it back up to 6ppm and there's about 4ppm being broken down every 24 hours or so. Roll on the 0ppm Nitrite readings...
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- Sean (Fr. Jack)
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Unforunately bacteria are use of a small but continuous supply of ammonia, so even when the nitrite peaks and the ammonia drops they still need to be fed, I have ask this question a 100 times with not one reply what wrong with taking some filter wool out of the filter of the tank where the first fish were fish out? Does it have to be so hi tech?
Hi Tech approach:
1. roll up sleeve.
2 Grab wool and place in fish bag with a tiny bit of aquarium water.
3. The really techincal bit...wait for it open hand grab wool close hand lift and but it into you filter assuming there is no chlorine and then Temp is OK
woo
P.S Please PM if you need an break down of this procedure.
That would be a ecumenical matter!!!
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- ChrisM (ChrisM)
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What is the common scaling factor in regard to each reading, ppm/mg/l/ etc etc.If you have all of the readings converted to one common scaling factor such as ppm then you can graph them all together,otherwise you cant make sense of the readings.
On the other hand you have raised the bar for this site,I havent ever seen such a professional approach to providing such a detailed account of a tank setup.I pat you on the back for attempting something not straight out of a book.I believe this will be the norm in years to come as soon as it is clinically tested and verified.If you would like some help in plotting data I would be glad to help out(my job involves graphing data all day!!!).
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- essjay (S Jackson)
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In response to the post above re: filter wool. I could have done that yes, and got some from the fish shop. That said I also wanted to experiment and see if the SafeStart does what it's supposed too.
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- ChrisM (ChrisM)
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- Sean (Fr. Jack)
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Once you have the results if the percentage difference between the control and the experiment is significant (20%+dif )then you can prove the result, if there is not much difference (5%)but you were running exact replicate experiment of 6 or more then that significant to.
To run one experiment without a control is mealiness, to post it is significant as you are way ahead of most posters so it has merit from an effort and technical interest point of view, which is good and raises the standard of the forum, as the tester had more than 100 post (Oscar) I doubt he was trying to post for the sake of it but just giving a interval feel to the experiment. When you go to the pub you buy one pint at a time and dont bulk buy 6 in one go to. Hence you post your self

That would be a ecumenical matter!!!
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- ChrisM (ChrisM)
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Does this mean we have to back up anything we say on this forum with graphs now!!!Damn you Essjay,you have raised the bar.
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