dumb used media questions

[chel]

Okay, so I've been having a heck of a time with my cycling as some of you might know who have been following my cycling journal ... I am cycling with 10 zebra danios and have a 36 gallon, my parameters now are ammonia .25-.5, nitrite 0, nitrate 20-40ppm. It's a long story but I seem to have had nitrates with no nitrites whatsoever and with the arrival of nitrates my ammonia hasn't changed -- up or down -- in over a week. Anyway, I finally pestered a friend of mine until they agreed to give me some of their used media so that I can seed more bacteria in there because nitrites just don't seem to be showing up.

Okay, so here is my question ... do I fit it in with my filter if it will fit in there (I don't have it yet, so I am not sure if it will fit), just put it in my tank, or what? It doesn't seem like it should matter but I have been having such a hard time cycling my tank that I don't want to waste this chance!

Another dumb question: I think it has carbon in it which I am planning on removing before putting it into my tank. Any reason not to?

Anyway, that is about it ... like I said, dumb questions I know but I'd rather be dumb than set my cycle back further. I've been cycling since mid-March and I'd like to get some more fish soon! Thanks.

[jaysee]

You definitely want to put the media in the filter, since that's where the majority of your beneficial bacteria will live. Placing it in the path of the flow of water feeds the bacteria each and every moment allowing the colony to grow at a much faster rate than if you just floated it in the tank.

Leave the media you are getting EXACTLY as you got it and just get it in the filter. Make it fit. You can worry about the carbon after your tank is cycled - one thing at a time :ssmile: This ought to get your levels under control quickly.

The only dumb questions are the ones unasked.

This must be very frustrating for you. What kind of filtration do you have and how much/often are you feeding? Your tap water may be the source of your nitrates, so you may want to test your tap water. Speaking of water, it's probably a good idea to do a 50% wc.

[Northernguy]

Yup I agree!
There is no dumb questions here!
Yes place what ever you can in with your cartridge.
If you have an ac filter there is a ton of room.lol

[terrapin24h]

agree with others, just that stuff in there and get water flowing over it, preferably before your filters cart so water flows through the cycled media into the new media. But a though occurs--don't get hung up on the fact that you did not have a nitrite spike. You ARE getting nitrate which means you must have enough bacteria to convert the nitrite that is getting produced. Believe it or not, that's actually kinda good as your fish won't be stressed by the trite spike(which is harder on them than the ammonia spike).

Also, are you doing frequent water changes, or adding any ammonia locker to your tank? If so, you could be sending yourself on a wild goose chase. Many water conditioners(prime, ammonia locking products, etc) can actually cause a false reading for ammonia as test kits test total ammonia(ie ammonia and ammonium) If i test my ammonia level right after a water change, i get an ammonia reading! the next day the test reads 0. It's entirely plausible you have a fully cycled tank. Over dosing with either ammonia locker or water conditioner can exacerbate the issue as well. One thing is for sure, that cycled media will do the trick.

--chris

[chel]

Okay, so I replaced the tank before I got your good suggestions to just leave the filter as is so I cut it open on the bottom and got most of the carbon out but left some in there to be as least disruptive as possible. You are right ... I should have just left it be but I think carbon was to blame for stalling out my cycle for a long time and so I overthought it. My parameters this morning were exactly the same -- .25-.5 ammonia, no -ites, about 40 -ates. I did a 35% water change and I'll test again tonight.

So, it makes sense to me that to have -ates I've got to have -ites but what is really confusing to me is why the ammonia isn't going down. Is it just that there aren't enough nitrites? The -ates showed up when I added a bunch of stress zyme about 10 days ago and I thought that perhaps it was just that either throwing my readings off or that it just introduced the -ates but not the -ites. As you can tell, I understand a little but not a lot about cycling. I didn't think I could have a cycled tank while still having ammonia. Below I've listed everything I've added to the tank ... maybe one of them is giving me a false ammonia reading?

This must be very frustrating for you. What kind of filtration do you have and how much/often are you feeding? Your tap water may be the source of your nitrates, so you may want to test your tap water. Speaking of water, it's probably a good idea to do a 50% wc.

Yep, pretty frustrating but I am trying to just deal. Right now for filtration I just have a Aquareon 30 (which is what came with the 36 gallon) but I am planning to double the filtration before adding more fish. I feed 1-2 times per day but just a very small amount. With the one caveat that my daughter accidentally dumped a nearly full canister of food in that took me several days to completely clean out of the tank and in the process I killed the start of my first fragile bacteria colony. My tap water is really bad so I've been using well water from a friend but I'll test it. Usually I do 50% WC but since the bacteria seems so unstable right now I didn't want to take the ammonia down really far and risk it so I just did the 35% change. I'll test again tonight and see what the levels are at.

Also, are you doing frequent water changes, or adding any ammonia locker to your tank? If so, you could be sending yourself on a wild goose chase. Many water conditioners(prime, ammonia locking products, etc) can actually cause a false reading for ammonia as test kits test total ammonia(ie ammonia and ammonium) If i test my ammonia level right after a water change, i get an ammonia reading! the next day the test reads 0. It's entirely plausible you have a fully cycled tank. Over dosing with either ammonia locker or water conditioner can exacerbate the issue as well. One thing is for sure, that cycled media will do the trick.

Yes, I've been doing water changes to keep my ammonia below 1 ppm while cycling. Before my -ates showed up about 10 days ago that meant that I was doing a 50% water change about every 3rd day and sometimes every other day. I hadn't done a water change since the 18th because my ammonia has stayed at .25-.5 and my -ates were acceptable but I didn't want to put it off any longer. I've added Dechlor-ease with every water change to neutralize the chlorine and chloramine. It also says it provides slimecoat and detoxifies heavy metals ... I intentionally have stayed away from ammo locks for the false readings but could Dechlor-ease be adding to my troubles? The only other things I've added to the tank are API Stress Zyme and Tetra Safe Start.

[jaysee]

I think I've read that some dechlorinators actually create amonia as a byproduct. I don't know anything about the roduct you are using.

Your filter is a bit weak for your tank. Perhaps it doesn't harbor enough bacteria to handle the all of the amonia produced? That would be why you have no nitrites, because that bacteria can only work as well as your amonia bacteria does. Ex. - If your amonia bacteria processes 0.5 ppm per day, then your nitrite bacteria can process up to 0.5 ppm per day, since it relies on the waste produced by the amonia bacteria. Now if your fish produce 1 ppm per day of amonia, and your biological filter is maxed out at 0.5 ppm per day, you would have a constant anomia reading, zero nitrites, and however much nitrates. I've made up these numbers to illustrate a point. EDIT - this is highly unlikely with only 10 zebra danios.

You ought to look into an AC or an Emperor.

[chel]

Well, that might explain why my ammonia reading has stayed constant rather than going up or down ... some of it is being converted but the bacteria hasn't grown large enough to handle all of it. I only have 10 danios but it's highly likely that some of that food that got spilled is still in the gravel rotting and producing ammonia, so you might be on to something there! thumbs2:

Is AC the Hagen Aquaclear? It looks like the AC 70 would be good for my size tank (36 gallon) it said it is good for 30-70 gallon tanks. The AC 110 said it was for tanks 60-110 gallons. I know people suggest to get twice the capacity so does that mean twice at the low end or high end? Sorry ... lots of questions, I know. :11:

[jaysee]

Questions are good, that's what this is all for. If the food incident was fairly recent and you have not cleaned it all up, that would certainly be a souce of ammonia. Do you vaccuum just the top of the gravel or all of it?

I don't know if you take the high or the low or the middle. I judge by GPH, and aim for circulating the water 10 times an hour. Here's a link for filter information. [Only Registered Users Can See Links.] . I would go with the AC70 or Emperor 280 on the low end and the AC110 or Emperor 400 on the high end.

[chel]

Thanks for the link for the filters...I will definitely check that out.

The food incident happened about 3 1/2 weeks ago. I netted out everything I could and then did really deep gravel vacuums for the next 2-3 times but didn't want to keep going too deeply and risk killing any bacteria that was trying to get established there. Might be time to do another deep gravel clean and see if I get any more rotting food to come up.

Thanks again!

[jaysee]

I have no concern for the bacteria in the gravel. The vast majority of the bacteria is in the filter, where the water is constantly feeding the colony. I know it's "bad", but I do complete gravel vacs once a week with the water change. Works for me. I would do a complete vaccuum....get everything out. Plus, a lot of crap will be stirred up and sucked into the filter where it will feed your bacteria.

You'll get there!

[Fraoch]

You may be on to something regarding the filter size.

Also - you can never have too much filtration - barring any adverse effects caused by excess current.

And finally - you will really like the AC!

[chel]

I did it ... went to one store and they didn't have the AC. They did have the emperor but I'd read it can be a bit noisy and Fraoch telling me I'd love the AC made me go to another place a bit further but that I knew had the AC 70. Got it set up and running ... COOL :19:

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It is such a great design and so quiet!

Chel

[chel]

Ooh, ooh, ooh ... I am so excited! Yesterday when I did my water test after my water change pretty much the only thing that had changed was my nitrate level -- my ammonia was still between .25 and .5, nitrite 0 and nitrate had dropped from close to 40 down to 10.

THIS morning my ammonia was close to 0!!! not quite bright yellow but definitely more 0 than .25. That is the first downward movement I've seen. My nitrates were up to 20, possibly a little higher. So, who knows if it is the used media, the new filter or a combo of the both but it seems like I am pointed in the right direction! I'm going to check again when I get home tonight and I'll post what it's at.

:19: Chel

[Fraoch]

THIS morning my ammonia was close to 0!!! not quite bright yellow but definitely more 0 than .25. That is the first downward movement I've seen. My nitrates were up to 20, possibly a little higher. So, who knows if it is the used media, the new filter or a combo of the both but it seems like I am pointed in the right direction! I'm going to check again when I get home tonight and I'll post what it's at.

:19: Chel

So close, this could be it!thumbs2:

[jaysee]

Hey I'm glad you got it under control....now you can enjoy the more pleasant side of fish keeping.

Chel - I HIGHLLY recomend getting a Seachem Ammonia Alert. It gives you continuous feedback so you can know at a glance what the ammonia level is at. It's really helped me to take care of problems before they became PROBLEMS. For $7 you get continuous readings in much smaller incraments (0/.02/.05/.2/.5) and it lasts for a year. I have one in every tank.

[chel]

Great idea! I will definitely pick that up on my next visit to my LFS. :fish: :fish: