No Ammonia while cycling

[LouDou11]

Hey all, I began cycling a ten gallon tank about four five days and have been dropping a normal amount of food for a 10 gal tank each day. I have Carib sea sand as well as Carib sea life rock and have used Fluval Cycle. Is there a reason I have not seem any increase of ammonia yet? I have also checked for Nitrites and Nitrates and those are also 0. Granted I am using the API test kit and I have heard its not the most accurate but am I missing something? I appreciate the help in advance.

 

[KrisReef]

Fill a 5 gallon bucket with salt water and Fluval Cycle, add half of the amount of food you have put in your tank and measure that in 5 days. If the test kits can detect those nutrients, or not, will help clarify what is happening in the 10 gallon.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Fill a 5 gallon bucket with salt water and Fluval Cycle, add half of the amount of food you have put in your tank and measure that in 5 days.

I'm curious... How is this any different than what's going on in the 10 gallon?

 

[fishyjoes]

I've read that developing the bacteria to break down the flake food can take weeks if you're starting with a "sterile" system. I have no idea what fluval cycle is.
You can get fritz turbo start for like $20 and just be done with it.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

what kind and how much food are you feeding? Four days might not be enough time to see a result on the test. I prefer a bottle of ammonia, you can get it at the pharmacy for less than $5.

 

[Dan_P]

Hey all, I began cycling a ten gallon tank about four five days and have been dropping a normal amount of food for a 10 gal tank each day. I have Carib sea sand as well as Carib sea life rock and have used Fluval Cycle. Is there a reason I have not seem any increase of ammonia yet? I have also checked for Nitrites and Nitrates and those are also 0. Granted I am using the API test kit and I have heard its not the most accurate but am I missing something? I appreciate the help in advance.

Hard to say from manufacturer’s description what exactly you are using.

If it is only nitrifying bacteria, these will not do anything with whatever food you are adding to the tank. You will have to wait some time until the right bacteria drops in to digest the food and generate ammonia. But then you may never detect ammonia because the bacteria in the bottle might be using it up right away. You might detect nitrite though.

Just a note, your approach is a bit off the beaten path, so the readers of your post may have no experience with it.

 

[KrisReef]

I'm curious... How is this any different than what's going on in the 10 gallon?

Well its not, except that it's just testing the API's ability to detect what impacts to the water column and "feeding" the tank should be, if nothing else is happening. If API in the bucket gives the same results then you have demonstrated that API can't detect any cycle at this point given the inputs provided.

If it shows NH3, or NO3 in the bucket, or not, then you have an idea if the API results are helpful or not for detecting cycling activities.

 

[LouDou11]

Hard to say from manufacturer’s description what exactly you are using.

If it is only nitrifying bacteria, these will not do anything with whatever food you are adding to the tank. You will have to wait some time until the right bacteria drops in to digest the food and generate ammonia. But then you may never detect ammonia because the bacteria in the bottle might be using it up right away. You might detect nitrite though.

Just a note, your approach is a bit off the beaten path, so the readers of your post may have no experience with it.

The bottle does say you an add fish right away, but I think I get what you are saying, there is not bacteria present yet to digest the food and generate ammonia. The bacteria in the bottle is just responsible for breaking the ammonia down into nitrites, but if there's no ammonia present then that obviously cannot happen right?

 

[brandon429]

did you read your reefcentral reply, it has you fixed by a specific date. you have an exact date your cycle will be done, posted there. the mechanism as to how that works is also defined clearly. this is not a new cycling bacteria, I've seen it in a hundred fish-in cycles. if you prefer to not be cycled in ten days, then ignore that reefcentral response to your cycle challenge.


that brand was covered here, five years ago

Bacteria in a bottle, Myth or Fact

Call me old school, back in the day we placed a deli shrimp in a tank to kick start the cycle. When tank reached 1.5-2 ppm ammonia we pulled it out and waited sometimes weeks to months for bacteria to colonize and drop ammonia and nitrites down to 0 to make tank safe for livestock. With recent...

www.reef2reef.com

I have seen this brand used a hundred times since then, it works fine. it carries bioload on day one, you're at day five....using food to break down as ammonia isn't the same as using liquid ammonium chloride for cycling, so I adjusted the cycle advice to match that detail.

 

[brandon429]

the reefcentral advice, summarized: ten days after adding this bottle bac and the food you added you are cycled... there is no reason your cycle will not follow the ammonia drop line from a common cycling chart considering what you've added. the test kits you're using aren't designed for this type of cycle, you'd count the # of days in waiting as the variable.

any seneye cycle on the planet would also show you cycled now, and for sure by day ten, the problem is you don't have that test kit so you needed another way to gauge progress


some degrading fish food may or may not spike that kit but it doesnt have anything to do with being cycled or not by the date stated.

 

[Dan_P]

The bottle does say you an add fish right away, but I think I get what you are saying, there is not bacteria present yet to digest the food and generate ammonia. The bacteria in the bottle is just responsible for breaking the ammonia down into nitrites, but if there's no ammonia present then that obviously cannot happen right?

That is the way it seems. No fish means no ammonia and no bacteria growth. Did you test for nitrite? That would be present if the fish food were digested and ammonia consumed before accumulates. Nitrite can be slower to consume and may show up in the test.