# Setting my 125g back up after 9 years stored in garage



## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Hi! :fish:

Been awhile since I've posted here. See a few familiar usernames and avatars still. I'm soon going to be setting my 125g back up after 9 years stored in a midwest garage without climate control. Hopefully it still holds water!

Got multiple projects in various stages all needing to get done before putting fish in tank.


Tracking down/cleaning/replacing old equipment[/*]
Wiring up my basement for outlets in progress[/*]
Buying and plumbing in a utility sink for water (fortunately a rough in for a future bathroom already exists so not a big job here)[/*]
Need to get some glass cut and put a sump together properly this time (using a standard 55g)[/*]
Going to plumb in a drip/continuous water change system so need to get that sorted out[/*]
Need help getting the tank and stand downstairs. At least the weather is getting milder so maybe I can do a test fill before moving it in at least[/*]
I bought 300 1.5" bioballs last week and stopped and got some austin's clear ammonia from tractor supply today so I'm about to throw those is a bucket with an air pump as soon as I find it and start growing some bacteria[/*]

Oh stocking planned to be all male peacocks/smaller haps. Maybe a couple mbuna males we'll see. My oldest son wants all the fish to look different otherwise I'd do mbuna harems like I had before. Still working on a stocking wishlist and not sure about the logistics since I don't have multiple grow out tanks for juvies and don't really want to buy all adults.

Hope to have more updates here soon!


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Welcome back and looking forward to the new set up!


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Deeda said:


> Welcome back and looking forward to the new set up!


Thanks Deeda. Progress is slow going so far but I did run a lot of Romex this weekend. Still need to wire up outlets but I've got cable to boxes.

Also purchased some equipment for the drip continuous water change system. Grabbed a refrigerator/ice maker water line kit with self-tapping valve and 25' of tubing. Also picked up a "5yr" chlorine and sediment in-line refrigerator water filter. Where I live I only have a small amount of chlorine (~1.5 ppm at the tap) and no chloramine. I'd bet I could get away without dechlorination for a drip system like this where l will likely be targeting 1-2 GPH into ~150g of water in the system but I figure it's only $30 for a filter with 7500gal rated capacity that should last me at least a year... I can afford to be a little safe here.

This week I plan to finish running outlet Romex and get my outlets wired up. I also want to pick 1 of the 2 55g tanks I still have lying around as my sump and get some glass dividers ordered. Haven't found my air pump yet so I haven't started cycling yet.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Quick question on your plans for the sump set up and my disclaimer that I've never used a sump.

What are you planning on using media wise or filter bags on the sump? Are your plans for submerged bio-media or more a wet/dry style with bio-balls?

The reason I ask is if you are just going with a plain sump with a pump, submerged media and maybe filter bags, consider using Poret foam as vertical media in the sump rather than the effort to install and silicone in glass baffles. An example would be Here. You could use 10PPI and 20PPI for coarse and medium media and add as many verticals as you would want.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Funny you mention poret. I actually bought 3 4" thick verticals for exactly that purpose back when I was running the tank before but never got around to using it. I think it's 1 10ppi and 2 20ppi and I've kept them all this time. I was planning to use them and the bioballs all submerged.

I remember being a little concerned that they fit tight and pushed on the front and back pretty hard (but never tried them with water pushing on the glass too andwasn't sure if I could shave then down if I had to) and I wondered if I'd have to worry about them lifting up off the bottom of if they'd stay in place well.

But It would keep things simpler for sure.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

I've never used the 4" thick Poret but do use the 20 PPI 2" thick ones as Mattenfilters with dual air lifts on 12 tanks in my fish room. I did have to cut them down both for tank width and tank height but it was so easy with a smooth blade kitchen knife and a drywall square.

If I remember correctly, Stephan recommended 1/2" wider than the tank inside width but in his FAQ section under cutting it, he suggests 1/2" to 1" wide. Mine fit snugly and when installed they don't bow and present a flat surface. They also fit snug to the bottom and retain their position without a problem.

You could always call or contact him before you start the project to get his recommendations.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I dug them out and measured and they're 13" wide. Both my 55s are 12.5" wide outside the glass. One has 3/16" thick glass and the other has 5/16" or more like 11/32" really. I think I tested them on the thicker glass tank. They might be about perfect as is for the thinner glass tank or I can try cutting them down a smidge. I probably don't need to worry too much about the pressure they're pushing on the glass with because it's probably much less than the water pressure on the glass. Plus the glass is going to bow a little with the water pressure anyways, so it probably should fit snug when dry.

I think they're actually a 20ppi (red) and 2 30ppi (blue, smaller pores than the red). The blue ones have discolored a bit around the edges from being exposed to light I guess but they don't seem to have deteriorated any.

It won't really be a true Mattenfilter because the flow rate is probably way higher than intended in a sump with high turnover iirc. But for all I'm trying to do probably not worth putting in glass baffles. So I can get my sump cycling soon as I get power in the basement.

I did find my air pumps today. A tired whisper 40 and a new in box whisper 100 I bought some time but never actually used I guess smh lol


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

They don't really put pressure on the glass because they do compress a bit so it sounds like you are good to go.

Do be aware that when wet and full of gunk, the Poret is heavy so keep that in mind when you want to clean them. I use a shallow SS food pan used in those buffet hot water wells I got for cheap somewhere long ago. I don't know how much clearance you will have in the stand above the sump so keep that in mind. Nothing worse than rummaging around on your knees to work on the sump wrangling a heavy foam Poret full of gunk.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Well I tried shoving them in the thinner glass 55. First 2 went in fine. Top bracket cracked while putting the 3rd in :/. They do push pretty hard especially because I have to put them in the tank first and then try to spin them into place. The 4" thickness makes the corner to corner distance significant. That bracket was already slightly cracked tho, and the epoxy I tried to hold the crack with was starting to delaminate. Likely woulda cracked when I filled it up anyways.

New plan is to cut the foam just slightly bigger than the inside width of the other thicker glass 55 and use that one. That one is older, has some chips on the corners/edges, and was already 2nd hand when I acquired it so not 100% confident in it despite the thicker glass. There's an AGA tag on the bottom with a name and 97 - assuming that's when it was made.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Sorry to hear about the center brace cracking. I never considered the 4" thick Poret would be such a pain to fit in the tank and didn't think of its lack of flexibility.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I had already replaced that center brace once too. Doubt it's worth trying to replace again.

Now that you've got me thinking about ease of maintenance with the poret... I do also have a 40 breeder I haven't got rid of yet. Might be a better option and I should be able to just turn the poret on its side and trim it to fit that way. I know that tank is solid or at least it was last time I used it. I'd only be using 30-35g of it's capacity due to the height of the poret being 13" in that orientation. With my drip system I shouldn't miss that loss of volume at all.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

The 40B may not offer enough room for the multiple Poret, bio-balls and a pump so consider that.

Not mentioned is if your 125G tank is drilled or not, I've heard stories of over the tank siphons trapping air and the sump pump over filling the main tank.

Would it be okay to move this topic to Aquarium Set up or Equipment for more help?


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## Stu W2 (Nov 17, 2020)

Commenting just to the point of a sump pump overfilling the display tank ... it can be avoided both with drilled tank set-ups as well as with siphon box set-ups by properly setting the min and max water levels in both tanks. Determine how much water your return pump can transfer from the sump to the display tank and then never fill the display tank beyond the point where it can accept the full amount without overflowing. Similarly, determine how much your sump can hold if the return pump stops working for whatever reason. Then leave enough room in your sump to handle the full amount that will transfer from the display tank before the level there gets below the level of the drain holes or siphon capability.

Regards,
Stu


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

The 125 is drilled with dual corner overflows so no worry there.

I dragged the 40 breeder in out of the garage today and did a test fill and all good no leaking. I cut the poret down to just slightly longer than the inside is wide and got all 3 in without popping the tank. Even with the poret being no more than 1/4" longer than the inside width does introduce a noticeable bow to the glass. It makes me a little nervous but also didn't add water with the foam yet to see how the foam fits with the glass bowing just due to the water. I don't want them to be too loose when the sump has water.

I didn't unbox the bioballs yet but should be plenty of room. I intend to go inlet from tank > 20ppi poret > blue/white floss pad (optional) > 30ppi poret > bio balls > 30ppi poret > pump/heater. I would bias all that towards the pump side of the sump and then be able to remove the poret for cleaning from left to right. Ideally the 20ppi and optional floss pad would do all the mechanical filtration and the 2 30ppi sheets wouldn't need removed very often.

In a stroke of luck the 40 is also drilled already, and the bottom of the lowest hole is at like 12.5" on one end. since my poret is 13" tall I should be able to use that bulkhead as my continuous water change overflow. I'll just make sure my tank dumps to that end and the pump and fresh water are at the other end and it should work perfectly *fingers crossed*.

I probably won't get the sump cycling til next week. Not sure I have tubing for the pump anymore. I can get water from an outside spigot through a basement window but don't have power yet. I ran the rest of my electrical cable in the basement for outlets but still need to wire up the outlets then connect to an existing single outlet circuit. Going to visit family this weekend so not getting powered up this weekend.

Having a small family gathering for my youngest's 3rd birthday easter weekend so that's when I should have help to get the 125 down to the basement. If I get the sump cycling should be close to cycled by then.

This seems to be more of a setup thread so it's fine if you wanna move it. I can start a new thread here when I'm ready to talk fish.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Just a quick dry fit of the sump this morning. Figure this thread is already too long without pics. I busted out the skillsaw to make short work of trimming the poret just right :lol: . A knife did fine for the first cut, but knives/scissors were just not doing a good job after that trying to trim off just a smidge. Finally got a fit that is snug to the sides but not pushing too hard on the glass so I'm happy. set the pump in on the left, and the far right bulkhead looks like it should be juuuust the right height for the drip overflow. I can easily turn the red poret about 45deg to remove it so that would always be the first one out and should capture most of the solids coming down from the tank but I might put a blue/white filter pad in between the red and the first blue too. The goal there would just be to limit weekly rinses to just the red. I'd like to be able to have at a minimum monthly intervals on rinsing out the blues, they should primarily be for biofiltration only. The bioballs are in between the 2 blue porets in a zippered mesh bag so that should be convenient. Basically will have enough biofiltration in this setup to handle any reasonable or unreasonable bio load and can always turn up the automatic water change system to keep nitrates low and water parameters steady :thumb: .


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Looking good and your plan sounds better with the 40B than the 55G for maintenance purposes.

Do you have a prefab stand or a DIY one? Will you be able to get the 40B through the stand doors or have to put it in place before you put the 125G on the stand?

Also, how stiff is the floor of the stand? On my older 75G and 220G prefab stands, the stand floor is a thin lauan panel just attached to the bottom of the stand and I notice bowing of the panel with my Eheim 2260/62 filters installed. You may want to consider adding 3/8" plywood panel or strips under the sump so it's supported evenly and if you need to shim it level.


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## Stu W2 (Nov 17, 2020)

Some info from the Swiss Tropicals site ... the supplier of Poret foam in North America.

"The purpose of the foam is not to filter the water as is often assumed. The foam serves as the habitat for a vast array of microorganisms that include bacteria, archaea, worms, ciliates, flagellates, and many others. These microorganisms live in a community that is based on biofilms. The biofilms are created by bacteria that secrete extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), which is often called "slime". The community forms a bioreactor that processes the waste and turns it into food and energy for its members, and ultimately into organic or inorganic products that are then used by plants, evaporate, or removed by water changes. It takes a considerable amount of time to establish this "filter community"; consequently, it is very important not to disturb it unless absolutely necessary. The brown filter sludge in a filter is for the most part alive and not simply waste. Removing this mud does more harm than good."

Regards,
Stu


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Deeda said:


> Looking good and your plan sounds better with the 40B than the 55G for maintenance purposes.
> 
> Do you have a prefab stand or a DIY one? Will you be able to get the 40B through the stand doors or have to put it in place before you put the 125G on the stand?
> 
> Also, how stiff is the floor of the stand? On my older 75G and 220G prefab stands, the stand floor is a thin lauan panel just attached to the bottom of the stand and I notice bowing of the panel with my Eheim 2260/62 filters installed. You may want to consider adding 3/8" plywood panel or strips under the sump so it's supported evenly and if you need to shim it level.


Thanks. Stand is a DIYer from when I was running before. The bottom already has plywood and 2x4 cross supports. When I had the tank setup before I was using a 55g for a sump but it took maneuvering to fit in and space above the tank was tight (also was only really using 5g buckets for my filter media and the 55g was basically only the pump chamber so not well executed back then). So the 40 fits even better with more access. I've probably got an old thread somewhere but all the pics got nuked by photobucket. May or may not build a new stand but that's what I'll start back up with - that was my first attempt and there's lots I would do differently now.



Stu W2 said:


> Some info from the Swiss Tropicals site ... the supplier of Poret foam in North America.
> 
> "The purpose of the foam is not to filter the water as is often assumed. The foam serves as the habitat for a vast array of microorganisms that include bacteria, archaea, worms, ciliates, flagellates, and many others. These microorganisms live in a community that is based on biofilms. The biofilms are created by bacteria that secrete extracellular polymeric substance (EPS), which is often called "slime". The community forms a bioreactor that processes the waste and turns it into food and energy for its members, and ultimately into organic or inorganic products that are then used by plants, evaporate, or removed by water changes. It takes a considerable amount of time to establish this "filter community"; consequently, it is very important not to disturb it unless absolutely necessary. The brown filter sludge in a filter is for the most part alive and not simply waste. Removing this mud does more harm than good."
> 
> ...


Cheers Stu, yeah aware of that. Pretty sure I got my poret directly from the swiss tropicals site. I'm not really using the poret as intended though. I'm going to be using it at least in part as mechanical filtration (in direct contradiction of the first sentence of the quote) so I'm going to want to be rinsing it out somewhat regularly so it doesn't turn into a big nitrate factory. Basically thinking of it as an oversized version of the foam blocks in the aquaclear filters. But I'm hoping to catch all the particles in the first block so I can leave the other 2 blocks mostly undisturbed. I should have enough redundancy with the 3 foam blocks and the bioballs where I can occasionally rinse out the pieces, as long as I don't do something dumb like clean them all at once :thumb:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Making progress slowly...

Got my power hooked up last weekend, that's a big step to being able to set up. I took some time away from aquarium setup to put together a sandbox for my kids since we're getting closer to spring and my youngest is getting sandbox toys for his 3rd birthday the beginning of april.

Another major project is going to be getting the utility sink in so I have a drain and a more convenient main water source.

Still need to start my sump cycling. Haven't had time to cobble together some temporary plumbing yet. I've been buying a lot of tubing and fittings and various bits and pieces I think I need for the tank drain and return lines and sump continuous water and overflow drain. Need to start putting it all together. Getting antsy wanting to get things set up just need to get the tank and stand downstairs and it should all come together.

Weird rock issue. The gray drainage ditch rocks I used in my setup years ago turned purple in storage, particularly the ones on top exposed to ambient light. Not Dark/brown/reddish purple, but literally *PURPLE* purple. I have every intention of reusing these rocks now. I don't know yet if I can scrub or power wash or bleach the purple away or just try to use the ones that didn't change color (there are more without purple than with, at least, and more than I need). Guessing whatever bacteria or algae was present on the rocks reacted with the light and turned purple as they died off? For example the rock below I'm almost certain was buried in sand up to the line where the purple starts, and it only turned purple where the rock was exposed to light in the aquarium. Idk. It's weird.










Started thinking more seriously about stocking but I'll probably head over and post in the malawi subforum

The waiting really is the hardest part.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Congrats on getting the electrical power done!

That is a strange color on the rocks, definitely purple and you may be correct that it was algae combined with weathering and sunlight that turned it that color but still really weird. I would think that drainage rocks along the roadside would also exhibit the same reaction but maybe they don't because most are under bridges? I'd try a bleach/water mixture and spray some on and see what happens.


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

Whoa... totally fake looking, absolutely non-fake rocks! That purple is kind of wild. Maybe it will fade and disappear over time in the aquarium? I dunno, a fresh coat of diatoms can do that sort of thing to a rock. And, nice work getting this big project buffed up and put back into service again. I can see with your mention of the utility sink, that this effort will be a fresh 're-boot' from your last go at it, hmmmm?
Applying some lessons learned, to improve the next go-round! :thumb:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Yeah definitely looks like purple dye. I know it's changed over time... Used to be darker and covered more of the rock, now it's lighter and brighter purple and wherever it's not purple is back to the plain gray they looked like when I grabbed them. And yeah never seen anything like that in the wild. Surely some rock somewhere grew algae then later dried out? There's plenty that didn't turn purple though if it doesn't clean.



Deeda said:


> Congrats on getting the electrical power done!


Thanks! All went smoothly. Outlet tester says they're all wired up correctly and trip the GFI protections as expected. Still need to get my lights on switches rather than pull strings but that's not a prerequisite to getting the fish tank up.



Auballagh said:


> And, nice work getting this big project buffed up and put back into service again. I can see with your mention of the utility sink, that this effort will be a fresh 're-boot' from your last go at it, hmmmm?
> Applying some lessons learned, to improve the next go-round! :thumb:


Oh yeah, biggest lesson learned is "don't let the fish tank inconvenience the spouse in any way". So... Not tying up the kitchen faucet with a water hose attachment a couple hours every week was a big priority for this project.  Explains why I've been tankless for as long as I have. I've had space for a 4 footer upstairs and indeed ran a 90g there for maybe a couple years after I moved to this house but the tank was basically in the kitchen and the maintenance was too much of an inconvenience. Down in the basement rec room with continuous water changes and a nearby utility sink is about as convenient as a setup can get. Just hope the tank doesn't leak after sitting in my garage for 9 years.

Hey that'd be just the excuse I'd need to get the 8 footer I really want for the space down there. "Honey I basically have to everything else is set up I'm just missing the tank!" :lol:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Put water in the sump today. Cleaned out the pump and got it running. It's a Rio 32HF. Trying to get the temperature up before testing water parameters and adding ammonia. Ambient temp in the basement looks to be around 60F and the water came out of the cold tap at about 40F. I threw in my 150W Marineland Stealth Pro that I used to run the 125 setup with. It was capable of raising the setup temp about 14degF above room temp IIRC. The light turned red and the water started heating up, but I checked a couple hours ago and the light was green with the knob set to like 86F and the water temp only about 60F so... not sure if it's really working. Probably going to need to find a 200W/300W anyways for the full setup given the cold basement and the continuous water changer adding 1-2GPH cold water.

I'm remembering correctly that warmer water is better for fishless cycling, right? *checks* yes it does say that in Deeda's sig link.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Definitely time for a new heater, the Marineland Stealth and Stealth Pro heaters were recalled in 2016 due to serious malfunctions, including damaging tanks when water seeped into the heater through cracks and blowing out the tanks.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Deeda said:


> Definitely time for a new heater, the Marineland Stealth and Stealth Pro heaters were recalled in 2016 due to serious malfunctions, including damaging tanks when water seeped into the heater through cracks and blowing out the tanks.


  ok wow yeah good to know. I did notice it bubbling when I submerged it like water was getting in, but assumed that was normal/acceptable. Probably not. I realized this morning the heater is toast anyways, in the worse of the 2 ways it could fail - stuck on. Sump was 92F this AM and up to 96F now even though I turned the knob down. The light was green and the heater itself was still hot to touch. Taking it out immediately. What brands are considered the least unreliable these days? (note I did not say "most reliable"  ) Can't remember if we're allowed to talk/recommend products here or not. When I got the stealth pro's they were considered one of the more favorable heaters IIRC. I've got a 50W stealth pro in my box as well.

Did all my water tests this morning and started adding some ammonia. Parameters seem all good and as expected. No detectable chlorine after circulating ~15hrs (measuring 2ppm at the tap and confirmed no chloramine). KH changed color at 5 drops and brightened up fully at 6. GH was 8-9 drops. So those seem adequate. pH is right around 7.6 where I remember it being 10 years ago - right on the cutoff between the low range and high range pH so especially difficult to read. call it 7.4-7.8.

I got the austin's clear ammonia brand and I'm not sure the solution %age. I know the ace janitorial strength was 10% so I figured it shouldn't be higher than that. I added about 0.5mL at first, into ~30gal or 113.5L of water. Assuming 10% that should get me pretty close to .5ppm. I checked and it at least wasn't more than that so I added another 1mL and about to check again. I remember when I first fishless cycled I overshot my ammonia by a lot without realizing (really hard to tell the greens apart on the test above 1-2ppm) and went over 2 weeks without ammonia dropping, so being careful to not do that again. I also realized that 2ppm in 30gal of water is not going to be the same "bioload" as 2ppm in ~150gal of water so just noting to remember that I should continue to fishless cycle after setting up, even if the sump becomes fully cycled on it's own before then.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Also, this shadow nearly gave me a heart attack earlier


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Yes we can discuss products on C-F but not vendors which can be done via PM!

I've only used 2 brands of heaters, Eheim/Jager for in tank use and Hydor ETH for external use. Obviously the Hydor ETH models require either hook up to a canister filter or a water pump that is always submerged such as in sump use and the heater must be installed vertically, I hang mine behind the tank but within reach for maintenance purposes.

I think the Austin clear ammonia is 2% ammonium hydroxide so just keep track of your dosage to reach the desired PPM.

What caused the shadow? It would have given me a bit of a pause as it looks wet.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Cool. I'll look into the Eheim/Jager's. I think in-tank is probably more convenient since I can place it in the sump right next to the pump. In-line would be difficult because my return splits shortly after exiting the sump and the returns enter the tank through bottom bulkheads in the overflow. Best use for inline is probably with a canister.

Yeah 2% is seeming correct after 2 test results. Still looking more yellow than green in the test tube. I'm up to 2.5mL of ammonia which should now be just getting to .5ppm in the sump if it's 2%.

The shadow was just a throw pillow sitting on the arm of the couch next to the sump, but I sure thought I had a leak and/or cracked tank!


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

It seems like you know this from your original question, but what I discovered in setting up my tank and researching them all, is that they are indeed trash.

I went and read a LOT of reviews and a lot of forums, including asking folks what they'd do in my case. Apparently, heaters suck. I would definitely go check out the reviews on the Eheim/Jager. I don't have one or personal experience, but what folks say is that they used to have great quality, but the stuff they are turning out now is super undependable. Fish-cookers.

And that's what I wanted to avoid - must not cook fish. After all the review reading, I bought 2 300W Aqueon Pro heaters for my 500 gallon system. It is holding steady at 80. In fact, I'm going to turn them down today as I'd prefer to be between 75-79. I got two heaters, neither one of which is capable of raising my temperature 15 degrees alone if it malfunctioned. In your case, I'd put 2 100w heaters in there depending on how cold the basement is. Further option is to put a heater controller on, so that if it heats up too much, the controller shuts it off. I decided not to go really expensive as the reviews were not materially better, and I intend to replace them annually.

Keep up the updates, I'm enjoying the read.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Glad you're enjoying! 500g system sounds nice. What size tank? Someday I'll have an 8 footer down in my basement but the 125 will hold me over for a little while.

what is it about heaters that makes them so darn unreliable? Is it some sort of industry wide planned obsolescence? I had the same must not cook fish mindset when I sized the 150watt for this setup when it was running before. It could only manage ~14 deg above room temp. I had one struggle when my furnace went out for a weekend, but I insulated the tank with a layer of warm air from an electric heater to compensate. I didn't realize I need to add "must not explode" to my list of apparently unreasonable demands. How about "must not electrocute my fish, myself, or my kids"? Asking for too much? 

Now I need to maintain 20deg above ambient so probably want to be capable of no more than 25-30 over. I'm also going to be adding 1-2 GPH of cold tap water per hour so that will require a little extra load but not too much? If I dump 1 gal of 40F water into my 150G system at 80F I'd only expect about a 0.5 deg drop in temperature.

So yeah I think you're pretty close there with 200W, maybe 300W tops. If I assume linearity and get up to 28deg over with 300W, but might lose temp quicker with the bigger difference between tank and room, so maybe 300W is about right.

I'm bearish on using more than 1 heater. There's additional cost and it just increases the odds of experiencing a failure in 1 of them. Also seems pretty much impossible from a controls perspective to get multiple heaters to synch if they're all not plugged in to a single external temperature controller. Always seemed like 1 would constantly run and only the other would cycle. But maybe there'd be an advantage going with 2-3 100W/150W heaters if there's a temperature controller setup that can ensure they can synch. On an external controller, it wouldn't matter if one failed "on" as long as it didn't ya know explode or electrocute someone.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I'm picking up a cheap 100W aqueon just to keep the sump cycling while I search for something hopefully better for the full setup. I wonder if there are any options other than "aquarium" marketed heaters? Would something like this be an option if one were inclined to DIY a custom setup? https://www.mcmaster.com/4668T54/ (more expensive, but would it also be more reliable as it would be "industrial grade"?)

Also had a brief, "I'm an engineer, what would I design that could be better?" moment. My first thought was probably some kind of an induction heater rather than resistive. Turns out there are some patents out there already. So makes me wonder why they're not already being developed and used?

In other news, I stopped adding ammonia at what I think is about 1ppm (and the calculations assuming 5mL of 2% ammonia solution support that). My 5yo picked the same color block on the card so that's my 2nd opinion haha. I'm just going to keep the ammonia light for now. I can increase the bioload once a full cycle is established if I want to once fully set up.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Oh, so much to unpack and answer in this one. I'll start going from the point I have it in my brain. Then I'll post that, reread everything, realize I didn't say a whole bunch of stuff and make another post. Rinse and repeat probably also!

2 heaters. your prediction is exactly what you want, actually. I have one set four degrees higher than the other. It is then always on. This means that it has a MUCH higher service life and much lower likelihood to fail. It's just on and dumping heat into the tank. It's why it's undersized. The second is the one that cycles all the time and it keeps your tank the correct temperature. This makes the second much more likely to be the one that fails. It's like the sacrificial anode on a boat motor or water heater. Cost of doing business - maybe $3 per month?

On heater controllers, the idea again is that you set it high so that it's always on. I did not put one on for two reasons. 1. Like you're discovering, I'd need two. 2. The ones that I was looking at had an alarm intended to tell you your heater element broke. It does this by going off if the controller never reaches the set temperature. Therefore, if I were to use it the way I outlined, it would be going off. I gave up and ordered two small heaters.

If your engineer brain itches, look into Positive thermal coefficient heaters. Tech has been in use for a while in other industries and it just making it's way into the aquarium world.

As for my tank - given the amount of things I have dumping heat into it, I have zero problem maintaining temp.

10 Foot long 410 gallon display. Peninsula configuration with the overflow against the wall and the tank sticking out into the room as an architectural element. I convinced Mama to let me split it with an aquarium instead of just building a wall which I was capable of doing and would have cost almost nothing. She's a VERY good wife  
Dims are 120x30x30. 15 inch canopy, 42 inch stand. 
My sump is split into three compartments attached by bulkheads to get proper flow through all my media. The Bean Animal overflow (1.5 inch) goes into a compartment with 4 7" filter socks. Then through there into the media compartment. 48x19 run 10 inches deep. The third compartment is for the pumps - 2 85W simplicity 3200 DC pumps. I have them turned down and just measured the current today. They're running at a constant 60 watts submerged. There's about a 100w heater always on right there.

Pumps push directly into 36W UV sterilizers. Also always on - see cycling heaters breaking. Same thing wearing out UV bulbs. Turning them on and off all the time wears that stuff out. Then up the the room end of the peninsula. Given head loss estimations, I believe I'm moving about 3,000 GPH through the system. The pump compartment shares a box with an ATO Reservoir. The sump, all together, is about 9 feet long and has a total water capacity of 117 gallons plus ATO res.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Did you look at the fish room suppliers for heating solutions? I like the individual Aqueon heaters tank. Or the Hydor inline heaters for the show tanks.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

DJR, you mean like heating the room rather than the tank? That's not really a good option where I'm putting the tank. This is the aqueon I picked up today to keep the sump cycling.









Strum your setup sounds impressive. I'd love a tank like that. 8' is the biggest I can go without punching a hole in my house somewhere, and that may even only be if I assemble on site in the basement. Someday...

What you say about heaters is what I remember. Its the cycling that causes the failures. Constant on isn't suppose to fail or at least lasts a lot longer in theory. I suppose in theory heater #2 in your scenario might even cycle less often than a single appropriately sized heater would I guess. And in the event heater 2 does fail, heater 1 is theoretically still pumping some heat in to hold things over until getting a replacement. I remember I did account for my pump before too. Not sure the wattage it puts out but yeah a submerged heater whatever wattage goes in has to go right into the tank as heat. My pump is advertised for efficiency and low heat. I remember chuckling about that thinking why would anyone care about efficiency when it's all going to balance out on the heater anyways? I guess maybe for a cold water setup.

Speaking of my pump... sigh... going to need a new impeller at least, if not a whole knew pump. When I went down to put the new heater in, the pump was making a loud buzzing/rattling noise it wasn't making yesterday. I assume it's something with the impeller but I guess I can't really rule out something on the motor side. Something weird with the impeller, one of the impeller channels is narrower than the others. In the thicker wall in between that channel and the next, there is a pocket with something wedged or glued in it. I did a quick tear down to see if I could notice something causing the rattling and picked at that piece and it broke right off  . Guessing it's maybe what's used to balance the impeller? In any case, it'd gone now and the rattling/buzzing didn't get any worse when I turned it back on. Flow still feels strong and since it's in the basement and not bothering anyone I left it on.

Given the prices I'm seeing for replacement Rio hyperflow 32HF impellers, anyone got recommendations for submersible pumps in the 1500GPH (at 4' head) range?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

No heating the tanks. I am not recommending anything, I chose not to use a system but go individual in my fish room. But FYI there are vendors that sell fish room supplies and systems rather than individual tank equipment.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

DJRansome said:


> No heating the tanks. I am not recommending anything, I chose not to use a system but go individual in my fish room. But FYI there are vendors that sell fish room supplies and systems rather than individual tank equipment.


Ok cool, I'll do some searching. Thanks


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Thanks, I must be honest, it is an impressive system. It was one of my main quarantine projects, and it got pretty weird. Super long story really short - We decided we'd do it in July (I drug my feet as I didn't really believe she would be OK with it). I started doing a ton of research, we knew we'd be doing Mbuna. At the time, I had no tanks and had been out of fishkeeping for 10 years. After I had ordered the main tank, and started quarantining fish for it in smaller tanks, I realized I was probably in over my head and searched desperately for the answers I needed. Sometime soon, I'm hoping to put together a thread on building the 410 Malawi Reef.

In my searches, I found really great information in a lot of places I didn't expect. One was Bulk Reef Supply, or BRSTV on YouTube. In a system this large, I'm taking a TON of queues from the reef guys. Want to know about overflows, search the reef forums. (Bean animal, FTW, BTW). Want to know about good pumps and water circulation - go to the reef guys. In a reef, folks are often running so much equipment that heat is actually a problem. In the old days off incandescent lighting, chillers were much more popular and necessary. The lights would overheat a tank, so on the salt side, folks are really concerned about efficiency and heat because the systems are so tight.

Another is Aquariumscience.org. I absolutely love this site. It's the best place I have found on the internet for information on freshwater fish keeping. Many people hate it. Read it anyway. For illustration purposes - see if you can find the article on UV sterilizers. This article discusses science. Things like molar doses of radiation. The sterlizing effect of ultraviolet light, and established principles in photobiology. Then, for comparison, find any other discussion of UV sterilizers in aquariums anywhere (including BRSTV) and they get it WAY wrong. They discuss things like "Dwell time" and other marketing terms that mean nothing. Nobody has yet to be able to show me how to calculate dwell time in my sterilizers, but I can absolutely tell you how much radiation things passing through it receive.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

For your pump, check out the simplicity 2100DC. Judging from the chart on my box, it looks like that one would be putting out 1,300 GPH at about 5 feet. It's controllable, and you can turn it down. Also, because it's DC, I THINK that a battery backup is possible that will run one of my pumps for a full 24 hours for about $300 in parts. For comparison - a UPS power supply with an inverter will run at about 8 hours tops, mostly due to the inverter converting to AC. I proved the concept with a bench power unit, not I'm just waiting on batteries.

For Noise - "Dead Silent" was a design requirement. I got it. The AC pumps have that 60 cycle hum like a Stratocaster. It causes the vibration and the humming. There is no cycling on a DC pump, so they are just a low "Whir" sound. I'm running two of the biggest ones simplicity makes, and I can still hear my brand new fridge in the other room. If you're familiar with an electric trolling motor on a boat, it's like that. Just a silent whir through the floor. Then I isolated the pumps from the plumbing with flexible silicone hose (Thanks BRS) and found a silicone honeycomb trivet on Amazon to set the pumps on to isolate them from the floor.

DC pumps are also adjustable, spin up slowly on start up, and have a pause for feed button that I just love. $136 online. I didn't look at the hyperflow impeller, but that pump is $190? geez...

I learned about simplicity from the LFS guy. I was going to buy an Ecotech Vectra L2 ($479) and he turned me on to simplicity. Drawback was that Ecotech has their own battery solution made to work with the pump, but I think I've gotten around that by building my own. Whole thing will save me about $700 over Ecotech!


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Oh yeah, I'm bad at this. I meant to write about heaters too. I'm feeling the reef guys right now. I have only had the main system running for two weeks now, so I'm still dialing in heaters. I think I don't need heaters  

I finally finished the chore of covering all the containers in the Sump, and the lack of evap cooling made me jump 2 degrees! I had been running at 82 and turned the heaters each down about 4 degrees. They were set at about 80 & 84. House is 69 overnight. It's still running at 80. I have not seen the heaters on since I turned them down yesterday.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I'll check out that pump recommendation, the flow and price point seem right. Fortunately power has been pretty reliable in my neighborhood. Buried utilities. Never lost power more than a couple hours since moving in. So not too concerned about battery backup. I don't really need silent in the basement, tho I do plan to move my office down there so too much noise might get to me. But when I was down there the other day, when the furnace kicked on it drowned out the pump noise. Mostly just want something that's current tech, reliable and will last.

I will check out the flexible silicone hose you mentioned too. Not super happy with inflexibility of "flexible" vinyl tubing. I did find some 1-1/4" corrugated (smooth ID) clear vinyl tubing for my drains tho that's an improvement from the plastic corrugated tubing I used last setup for the drains.

I bought the rio 32hf in 2010 for $97 from big al's. I think it's just not made anymore so parts and any remaining pumps are expensive now.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

That sounds awesome. The silicone had to be ordered and was expensive at like $6-10 per foot, but it's really flexible and seems worth it.

I have never lived in a place with power as dependable as I have now. All the lines in my end of town are buried. I have lived here for 10 years, and we believe we have had the power go out twice since we've moved in. The longest was just this year, and it was under 9 hours. And THAT'S the reason it's such a big deal to me now. The power doesn't go out, so it's never top of mind. Which means my generator is not maintained. Which means I would not be able to get everything up and going quickly, because it's not all in the "Quick-draw" position. What that means is that IF the power goes out anywhere near me, there are going to be a TON of people trying to figure out their emergency situation - because IF the power goes out here, it's generally because something went really wrong with the main lines and it will be a while before it's on again.

Since I know myself, and I know I'm lazy and stupid, I'm building the backup now. So, the power goes down and I have literally a whole day to get the carburetor cleaned on the generator and siphon some fuel out of the boat (it's always fresh, she gets run a lot), and get it up and running. I know I'll have to do all this for my generator, because I'm stupid and lazy, so it won't be ready. Or what If I'm on vacation? Batteries now give me a day to get home then.

There was a gigantic storm that came through the PNW last month. I saw people posting on Facebook about losing 400 fish when the power went out. What a devastating loss... I'm just trying to make sure that I take care of that now while I'm thinking about the tank. Mama loves her fishies, she'd be very sad if something happened to all of them at once because the power went out, and we weren't around to deal with it. Perhaps it's the magnitude of my project and how long I've been working on it, combined with the storm, have me a little spooked.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Pretty sure there was a time when I ran this tank at my old place where the power went out long enough I was siphoning water from my sump into 5g buckets to pour back into the display just to keep some circulation going. If you can share any info on how your battery backup system is setup and wired in I'd be interested in checking it out.

Solid recommendation on the simplicity 2100DC. Just arrived today and I had it swapped in and running in about 15 minutes. I also snagged a silicone trivet since that seemed like a pretty good idea too, but honestly not sure I even need it. That pump is more than quiet enough for me. The electronics over by the breaker box and furnace on the other side of the basement buzz louder. I'm going to hold off on silicone tubing. IIRC my overflows are going to be louder than anything else anyways.

I purchased a 300W Eheim Jagar heater with the pump. Longer than I was expecting but it should still work at an angle on the end of the sump next to the pump. It won't work vertical or horizontal. If not by the pump, I'd have to fit it in on the tank return side. Just need to run it in the full setup to validate the temp can't get too high if it fails on. As long as it can't kill fish if it fails on, I think I can deal with finding an emergency replacement in a reasonable time if/when it does ever fail.

No change on the nitrogen cycle yet, all ammonia still no nitrite. Not really unexpected as it's only been 6 days since I started adding ammonia. Planning to clean and do my test fill on the 125 in the garage tomorrow. Need to start on that utility sink too. and running the drain line for the drip system. 10 more days til I have the tank in the basement. got some unexpected car work to do this weekend which will eat one of my working days


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## nathanieltyler90 (Mar 16, 2021)

Welcome back. How many bioballs are you adding in the tank? I have a 50g setup and am thinking of moving from ceramic rings to bioballs.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

nathanieltyler90 said:


> Welcome back. How many bioballs are you adding in the tank? I have a 50g setup and am thinking of moving from ceramic rings to bioballs.


Thanks. Currently 300 1.5" bioballs from aquatics experts. They came in a zippered mesh bag which is kinda nice for ease of maintenance. But I'm thinking about building a egg-crate (light grid) box so I can put them in loose without them scattering around the sump. I think I'll be able to fill the "chamber" (not really a chamber just the space between foam panels) more efficiently. Right now there is space around the bag where water can flow without passing through them. If I do that, I could probably buy another set of 300. Also may bubble in some air under them as well.

But, for my setup I could probably lose the bioballs entirely and just add another 4" block of foam. The foam has more surface area anyways, and I'm not utilizing the bioballs in their most efficient configuration either (above the water level for "wet-dry" inducing extra oxygenation). The benefit, apart from media redundancy, is that I can scoop some out and toss them in a HOB if I need to set up another tank for isolation or quarantine in a hurry (may be likely to happen with all-male stocking).

IIRC, I didn't really like the idea of ceramic media because the pores can clog easier, and one thing I'm hoping to achieve is to reduce the time I need to spend on maintenance. Theoretically more surface area per volume than bioballs though (I think).


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I'm really glad you like the Simplicity pump! My case is a little different than yours, I felt a very slight vibration through the floor (My tank sits on wood, yours on concrete slab, I'm guessing). I think the vibration was actually a harmonic difference between the two pumps, and the trivets helped with that, anyway.

About egg-crate: A solution I came up with is to use Matala Mat instead. It's rigid, comes in 1.5 inch wide sheets, and can be wedged into a sump as a divider wall to hold things instead of egg-crate, plus it adds a lot of bio-media surface at 170 ft^2/ft^3. I have a cubic foot of K1 sandwiched between these two layers, like you're mentioning with the bio balls. This is temporary and will be removed. I cycled the K1 in the garage a lot like you're doing with your sump, but in the end I decided that having it fluidized was too noisy, and so I'm switching over to foam. Again, I'm using the Matala to hold up multiple layers of 2 inch foam. I consider it a Hamburg Matten Filter type sump, which leads me to my next point - I would go with extra foam over extra bio-balls. I do use the cycled K1 like you're mentioning though. A media bag full of that makes anything fish safe immediately.

I read aquariumscience.org. Then I read it again in its entirety. And then I got rid of all my ceramic. I advocate for everyone to do the same and the reason is very simple - no matter how great it is at the start (This is even debatable) after a very short time, you're left with nothing but the surface area to grow bacteria. The pores simply clog. If you don't believe me, get any piece of ceramic media that's been in use for more than a month or two (fully cycled) and you won't be able to blow any air through it. Do you think water is getting through that to the 170,000 ft^2/Ft^3? It may technically exist, but it's practically worthless. I use it now as planting media for pothos in HOBs.

As for the battery backup, my batteries arrived yesterday. I'll try to build it this week, and share a wiring diagram once I prove it works. I'm all talk at this point


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

My tank is on a slab. Though technically the sump is currently sitting on a not so rigid table on a carpet on a concrete slab. not sure if that helps or hurts or will be any different when the sump is sitting on wood directly on the slab.

Matala Mat is an interesting idea. I do already have a bunch of scrap egg crate laying around tho so it's a "free" solution. I'll look into it though, I've heard Matala Mat before but never looked into what it actually was.

Interesting you mention Pothos. I've been reading about adding terrestrial house plants to help with Nitrate and Pothos is what's mostly mentioned. But, it's toxic to pets and I have 2 cats and a dog so it's not really an option for me. My animals will find a way to eat it, they're dumb. I was looking into some pet friendly alternatives and debating trying Spider plants or Swedish Ivy. I did buy a couple patio planters (with no drains) and thinking I could set them on top of my canopy and run a separate loop off the sump. either another small pump or tee off the Simplicity. Funny enough, I have tee's and ball valves and barbed fittings from the previous setup where I thought I would set up a system to shut off flow to the display but keep the sump circulating on a bypass loop, but eventually tore that out because I never really used it. Probably caused me trouble because I didn't have a lot of space above my sump when it was a 55. There's a lot more room using the 40 breeder.

Looking forward to hearing how the batteries work.

As for my progress, I didn't do the test fill yet. planning that for tomorrow as it's the nicest day of the week. I did drag the tank away from the wall in the garage and start dusting it off. I made a couple unfortunate (but hopefully not project canceling) discoveries.

1) I discovered a crack through the rim of the bottom brace (near 1 of the 2 cross braces, but not actually threw it. I have no idea when that might have happened. Maybe sitting out in the garage warming up and cooling down, the plastic probably expands/contracts more than the glass, maybe that put enough stress on it that it popped? Or maybe it's always been there and I forgot? I'm going to search through some of my old posts here from years ago to see if I ever mentioned it. I feel like I would have noticed it when painting the back and remembered. But I think I can ignore it without any risk to the tank since the bottom center brace is still intact front to back (and I doubt that brace actually sees much load anyways since the bottom glass already ties the front and back together and there's no way that bottom center brace is pretensioned in order to prevent the silicone seam from carrying that load. I can really think of any load that would have been supported by the section of the bottom brace where the crack is (tho also if it happened while the tank was set up in the past and filled I can't think of what load would have caused the crack either...) Anyways I think I'm going to proceed, I think it's not a worry. I just hope someone else can agree with me about it not being a worry 


















2) My stand may or may not have developed a wobble (or it could just be my garage floor is not entirely flat, since it was more/less apparent as I dragged the stand around with the tank on top). I'll have to figure out if it is actually warped or not and decide if I want to just build a new stand now which is something I wanted to do _eventually_ anyways, but don't currently have my wife's permission to kick off until she gets her she-shed (which is already like 3 summers overdue). I do have about an inch of pink foam insulation between the tank and stand top to even out my poor craftsmanship and cheap material when it was built, but I'm not sure I want an additional warp stressing the seams of the tank.

3) this is probably just a cosmetic thing but it's weird. I had some kind of thick black fabric sheet to hide the pick foam under the tank. Well... it (or something fluid that got soaked into it sitting in my garage for 10 years) kind of reacted with the plastic frame in spots on the bottom of the tank. The plastic is a little deformed and the black sheet is a bit bonded with it. I think the corner below the sheet got bunched up and was pulling on the corner and deformed it a little. There are also spots where the sheet is just stuck to the bottom of the plastic rim.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

For the slab, I was meaning that it probably wouldn't transfer the harmonic through the floor into my feet like the wood floor does. I think that this exists for me because I have two pumps and they're not turning at exactly the same speed.

Pothos - Initially, the thought was like yours. I'd use the terrestrial plant to reduce or control nitrates. NOPE! Again, here, we can take a queue from other aquatic hobbies, in this case aquaponics. It takes about one LARGE plant to deal with the nitrates from one Mbuna. I mean like, one entire tomato plant. So, if you were to run the plumbing out of your tank and then through all the garage, which would be full of plants, then you got it! I realized this and resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to do water changes to control nitrate. So why do I keep pothos? Well, I had it because I thought it would work, and I find it pretty, I guess. Also, the cutting that I have came out of Grandma's house, and she passed at the beginning of the year, so I'll keep it going. I have two cats who are certified morons. I certified them and made them cards. They were laminated. They deserved it. They have never touched the pothos, but it was surely a concern for us as well. You know your animals... 

Matala mat - VERY hard to beat free solutions. When I engaged in this project, I did not have any tanks or old gear laying around. Scratch again from the bottom for me!

For batteries, I am NOT an electrician, but here's what I have in theory:
Two batteries in series provide 24v to match the powers supply of the pump. 
I got a two bank low-amp charger to keep them all topped up and maintained all the time. 
I got a relay with a 110AC coil that will plug directly into the power bar just to activate the switch. 
Default position on the relay (not lighting the 110AC coil) pulls battery power.
Closed position when the 110AC coil is hot pulls power from the power supply. 
So - if the power that lights the 110AC coil on the relay goes out, I know that the power supplying the pump went out, and it should switch over automatically to battery power. At that point, I have 55AH of batteries and a pump that's pulling 2.4 Amps, so I should have 23 hours of backup with one pump running.

On the crack - SON OF A [email protected]#$*~! in my spare time, I'm a certified ******* (yep, laminated card). I would fix it and run it. I'd fix it with the *******'s best friend - JB weld. Rough up the area REALLY good with sand paper so the JB weld will stick, then I'd make a patch of fiberglass mat about 1x2 inches or the width of the bottom plastic brace. Slather the glue onto the frame, shove the fiberglass mat down into it, then saturate to hold. I've even done this with a piece of printer paper to add a little structure to the JB weld. I have no idea if this will work or not. Just what I'd do.

On the solvent on the bottom, I'd guess that's cosmetic... but I'm very dumb.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Plants: Sure, I'm not expecting to eliminate water changes or achieve 0 nitrate. I figure it might help remove a little, even measurable amount of nitrate? Or maybe outcompete the algae on the other macronutrients I've never tested for? I've always had a ton of the brown diatoms and occasionally get it to turn green but it never gets any growth to it, more of a film, and the pain in the butt spot algae on the glass that's so difficult to remove. If I can't get desirable algae (assuming there is such a thing) maybe plants can prevent, or more likely, marginally slow the undesirable algae? Or in any case, as you say, they'll look nice 

Batteries: I figured you'd be trickle charging. The part I didn't know how it would work would be how to get it to automatically switch over when the power went out. I assumed there was some type of switch - I guess the relay is the technical term I didn't know about. Bout the only thing I do remember about electronics and batteries from my RC clubs I joined back in college was that rated/advertised capacity is rarely actually achieved in practice, so I hope your 55AH you're planning on isn't far off from what you actually end up with.

The crack: I didn't really consider I would try to fix it or re-bond it. I didn't figure anything bonded to the plastic well enough. Is JB weld a pretty good bond assuming it's scuffed up enough? I tried to stop a crack through my centerbrace on the 55 I was going to use for a sump with some squeeze tube epoxy and it maybe worked for a while at first but eventually unbonded and well you've read the ultimate fate of that tank already earlier in this thread. I did macguyver a plastic mobile my first son ripped the hanging hook off of with epoxy saturated paper towel (and I'm proud of the fact that fix has survived like 4 more years and my second son!) so I'm in no way above rednecking a solution. However in this case I think my plan is to test fill the tank and observe the crack. If it doesn't separate/displace/move in any way, then I'll use the tank and it wouldn't matter whether it's JB welded back together or not (it's a nice option as a cosmetic filler though!). If it does move and that movement looks threatening to the integrity of the tank, I'm not sure I'd trust a JB weld fix anyways.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Well, I guess that this says a lot about me. I paid such close attention to the quantitative differences that the Pothos made in the tank, that I did not look at the qualitative. Quantitatively, there was no measurable difference. I had 3 30 gallon tanks with nearly identical stocking and decor. Submerged anubias and java fern in all, but the pothos in only one. If I measured nitrates in all 3 tanks at the same time, I got nearly identical results, so within the accuracy confines of the API test kit - no, there is no measurable difference. I suppose that I could also say that there was not a material qualitative difference between the 3 because I didn't notice one. Yes, I understand the logical holes in this argument, and I will repent later.

The batteries and battery backup are an interesting one. I bought an on-board battery charger which is probably actually intended to go in a boat and keep the trolling motor batteries topped up. I went this route because it is a 4 amp charger per bank, which means that if my relay blows up, it should still run off the battery default and through the power bar/battery charger. Maybe, I don't know... I'm dumb. Also, the charger is waterproof...because boats. Also, because it has some interesting top up/desulfate capabilities to keep the batteries lasting long. 
The battery capacity is an interesting question - I'm actually limited on physical space. I would love to throw 110s in there, but to make the 24v system, I need two batteries, so it's actually two 55ah batteries in series. Double volts but keep the same capacity. 
The other problem, is that I can't really test it out without being willing to replace the batteries. Even with the AGM Deep cycles, they're not really supposed to drain past 80%. They won't really come back from that, so I'm going off the stated battery capacity. I found with my 24v trolling motor, it was actually pretty accurate, if not a little short. Just trying to buy time.

I like the idea of a test fill and observe. I did one on the big tank even though it was 500 gallons and people said I was crazy. In my case, one of the things I was observing was the floor...  I also like JB weld. It really is good stuff. Epoxy saturated paper is SOOOO Strong.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Ah yeah those API cards... I used to dilute 4 samples to 1, 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 tank to tap mixtures just to have more data points to try to divine the actual reading. So I can easily see how it's impossible to measure a small amount of nitrate reduction due to plants should said reduction actually exist.

Some good news - no, great news - tank test fill went great! No leaks. Ever so small drip into the right corner overflow at the bottom where the overflow silicone seam meets the tank silicone seam. That's no problem and I remember it being like that before. As for the crack in the bottom frame, it didn't widen or shift in the slightest. Just no load on it. I'm fully confident the structural integrity of the tank is in no way threatened by it - at least the confidence of a guy setting the tank up in his basement anyways  . Oh as for the stand it's totally fine as well. Busted out the level and my garage floor is sloped in 2 directions, towards the middle then towards the front. Makes sense for making sure water runs out but annoying for say test filling an aquarium. I found a mostly level spot and went for it. With the weight of the full tank on top the stand doesn't even wiggle when I bump into it. Still solid. OK that stand still needs wiped down and some touch up paint but it's functional.

The sight of success:









So, onward. sump is still working on converting ammonia to nitrite. Been testing every other day and still all green/blue for ammonia/nitrite. Almost 2 weeks since adding ammonia. I hate how long this takes from scratch. When I set up my first tank in 2009, a 55g, I apparently added ammonia on September 29th and the ammonia finally disappeared and converted to nitrite on October 13 - so exactly 2 weeks. That means tomorrow _should_ be the magical day (ain't exponential growth rates fun. nothing for 2 weeks then boom). Then starts the more annoying wait for nitrite to go away while adding ammonia every other day and starting water changes to prevent nitrite from just running away.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Congrats on the test fill success!


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Tomorrow (today, actually) is tank moving day! I'm excited as a kid on Christmas Eve haha.

Had another fake scare. Tank has been sitting full since I filled it Tuesday. Checked it yesterday and the cloth it's sitting on was wet under the tank near an edge. Oh no, a leak! Not so... That drip into the corner overflow finally leaked enough to start spilling through the drilled holes. Instead of just dripping down to the bottom, it ran down the edge of the hole and wicked across the bottom of the bottom glass to the edge and soaked into the cloth, which then spread underneath the edge to the outside where I saw it. Stuffed a paper towel down the bottom of the overflow to catch the drips and it all dried up again.

I did not yet hit the magic cycling day of finding Nitrites. Have not tested since Wednesday, tho. So officially my cycle is progressing slower than expected. My ammonia is starting to fade away in the readings. Down to about 0.5ppm. but not yet showing up as nitrite. Saw the same happen back in 2009 when I set up my very first tank. Posted a thread about it and everything. Back then I kept adding more ammonia to bring the test back up to my target level. Eventually the cycle happened and of course will eventually happen now as well and I'm in no real hurry yet as there is still work to do before I can get fish. Yet...

SenorStrum, mi amigo, I've been reading aquariumscience.org in my free time... The information there says higher ammonia (and high nitrite) will encourage beneficial bacteria growth faster than lower levels. With the optimum being claimed as something in the 100's of ppm. This goes against conventional wisdom (of which I have my own anecdote of off the chart Nitrites and my cycle completing the day after a big water change to massively reduce Nitrites to a readable level). Of course I now have another day point of a cycle progressing more slowly with much less ammonia added throughout the first 2 weeks (1ppm at the start, down to .5 ppm now with no additional added cycling slower than multiple doses of ammonia added to maintain 2-5 ppm ammonia is slightly more water). I'm not about to go add 100's of ppm of ammonia but I may just take it to 5ppm if I go test in the morning and still don't find Nitrites.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Tank and stand successfully moved! :dancing:

After moving the tank downstairs, I realized whatever solvent caused the fabric to bond with the plastic frame also significantly ate at my pink insolation under the tank. So I replaced the 2 layers of 1/2" foam with a single 1" thick sheet, and trimmed and taped my black sheet to the foam better than the hack and tuck job I had before. Much cleaner look now. I also took out my little hand held jigsaw and cut the bulkhead access holes like 4x bigger. That was a serious flaw in the original setup, I had no way to get a channel lock on the bulkhead nuts. I actually had cut one hole a little bigger with a hacksaw blade (laying on my back under the stand lol) because I was somehow dumb enough to fill the whole tank before making sure the bulkheads didn't leak and didn't want to drain and move the tank again to properly fix it.  Well now it's properly fixed. I'm feeling really good about how well everything is coming together. The major barriers to getting this set up and running again are behind me :fish:

My fishless cycle continues to confuse me, but at least in the way I'm familiar with from the first time I did it. Today when I did my tests both ammonia and nitrite read 0. I did not bother testing the 'trates because I know it's not a full cycle yet. I still don't know where the ammonia goes in the phase. I brought the sump back up to ~2ppm today this time rather than the 1ppm I started at, and topped off most of what water has evaporated over the past couple weeks. I'll test again tomorrow and see what I have. Nitrites should blow up soon, based on past experience. I can see some sort of organic film starting to form on the inside walls of the clear vinyl tubing and surfaces are starting to get that slimy slippery feel so seems like I've got some biofilm starting to build up.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

That is all SO exciting!

Also, test your nitrates. It's really possible that you're actually good to go. Smeagol and I had a long conversation about the fishless cycle here:
https://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/vie ... 4&t=454163

I wrote so much in that post that I don't really want to repeat, cause it's really long. Also, I talk a lot about actually dosing extremely high amounts of ammonium. But, my thoughts are this:
1. As you've noted, the API tests are no good at reading large amounts of ammonia. Therefore the user can't really see that it's changing and will get frustrated. Smaller amounts can be observed to be changing easier. 
2. Acidification through the buildup of nitric acid is a real thing and will stop the cycle. I would wager that it was not high nitrites that you fixed in the water change, but low PH instead. 
3. I would worry about this fact pattern - You dose small amounts of ammonia, then it's converted slowly to nitrite. So slowly, in fact, that the nitrite is converted to nitrate without ever spiking. If you add too many fish, there are not sufficient bacteria to convert higher amounts quickly, and that's when you find the spike.

Good luck! I'm really enjoying reading about the progress.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Thank you! I remember I read that thread when I came back to the site and just read it again now. All good stuff and I appreciate you sharing! This thread is kind of my personal blog at the moment, I'm glad someone is appreciating reading my rambling haha.

This is all deja vu to me right now. I started a thread like 12 years ago the first time I fishless cycled. Going back and reading what I was seeing then is very familiar to what I'm seeing now. Back then I was dosing a higher concentration of ammonia but it was... evaporating? I claimed I was losing about 0.5ppm every other day, which is in line with what I'm seeing now. Then, I kept adding more to try to maintain 2ppm. At one point I thought maybe I was misreading the results and way over-dosed, but I diluted some samples with tap water and found the concentration matched what I thought (2ppm) despite adding much more total ammonia than that over time. (that's also when I discovered prime treated tap water mixed with tank sample completely hides api ammonia results) The first thought then was also that maybe the nitrite was getting converted to nitrate simultaneously and I was fully cycled... but no, did not detect nitrates then. A few days of being confused and posting frantically and then one day whoosh ammonia was gone and nitrites were off the chart. So... I'm kinda expecting a repeat performance here, and that maybe it's just taking longer since I started with a lower dose of ammonia both ppm and total and didn't add more again since until yesterday. But, I will test this evening and see what the tests tell.

To your other points:
1: yeah, I don't even bother trying to fill the test tube up to the 5ml line precisely anymore. I just put some drops in and look for color changes at this point haha.
2: this is interesting. I actually mentioned back in my old thread that I had done some research on this point and mentioned how I should recheck my pH and KH, but then the next day is when the nitrites showed up off the chart and I probably forgot all about doing that. And don't know if I ever did check because I haven't found the threads if I ever talked about doing the water change for the elevated nitrites. So I suppose I should actually monitor my pH and KH and see how it's changing as my cycle progresses, and then if my KH gets used up and/or pH starts to drop I just throw in some baking soda right? 
3: As I mentioned above I don't think this is what's happening and soon I should be seeing the nitrites spike. But in any case, the plan is to finish off the cycle in the full setup where I'll have to add much more ammonia to even get to 2ppm. I started low thinking the bacteria would grow faster in smaller concentrations based on both my past experience as well as the conventional wisdom that higher concentrations of nitrite and ammonia slowed bacteria growth - wisdom I've passed on myself from time to time. Always good to keep learning :thumb:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Test results: 
Ammonia: 2ppm
Nitrite and Nitrate: both 0ppm

This is day 18 after adding ammonia. So starting with a low concentration, seems like no bueno. 1ppm in 30gal doesn't seem enough.

I added another 2ppm to bring it up to 4ppm. :Shrug:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Trying not to overthink this (failing, etc...) I did read on aquariumscience all the other "stuff" that could be added in addition to ammonia (and the reasons why) to "optimize" fishless cycling... sodium nitrite, baking soda, table sugar, baker's yeast, calcium sulfate, sodium phosphate, magnesium sulfate, ferrous sulfate... I don't plan on doing all that, really don't want to overcomplicate a process that could/should be as simple as ammonia + time = cycled. But a couple interesting points that recalibrate my thinking a little.

One point being lacking a phosphate source. Which makes sense because I've suspected my water is naturally low phosphate (and high silicate in the past due to the sand I was using) due to the type of algae I've seen in the past. Mostly brown algae that occasionally turned a little green, and green spot algae on the glass (which is a symptom of low phosphate iirc).

The other point being something I was actually thinking about without putting an organized thought to, but only adding ammonia and not adding something organic like fish food means I'm missing an opportunity to start building the bacteria colony that breaks down the solids into ammonia. I think those grow pretty fast though once fish waste starts showing up though, and I don't think there's anything negative to allowing solid wastes to persist trapped in the filter a little while until this process happens.

Sidenote: also finding out that my original thinking of regularly cleaning my first foam block and not disturbing the others is likely at best unnecessary and at worst disruptive. I don't plan on using filter socks or cleaning mechanical filtration often enough to remove this waste before it starts to break down so it's all eventually nitrate anyways. Kinda relieved to find that the best maintenance schedule might just be "don't touch anything until the water level on the pump side of the sump drops too much".

So basically what I'm thinking is, I've got a couple relatively low effort action I can take to maybe help things along but at worst doing no harm.

1) When I was digging out my old equipment I found a 10yr old jar of NLS-grow that I'd probably (maybe?) not want to feed to fish after this long anyways, but it's probably just fine to throw into a cycling filter as a source of ammonia and "other things" claimed to be helpful for building beneficial bacteria (phosphates, sulfates, iron, carbon dioxide, etc and in addition, a small amount of seed beneficial bacteria the author of aquariumscience claims is present in fish food... this is my skeptical face on that claim (-__-) ). But probably can only help/not hurt if I go throw a little scoop of that old food in there.

2) I doubt this will have much of an impact, but I also found a brand new looking whisper 100 air pump in my old equipment and I've already been debating running a big ol' air stone under the bio balls. That could theoretically add in more O2 and CO2 which can't hurt. However, I have a whole lot of circulation going on right now so I'm not sure I can really benefit too much from aeration. But putting it below the bio balls might help since the flow already passes through the first 2 layers of foam where some O2 and CO2 should be getting used up, so aerating the bioballs should help them and the final layer of foam be a little more productive. maybe? Only reason I haven't done this yet is because I'm also debating just ordering another block of foam and removing the bioballs (or moving them to the final "chamber" with the pump to be used as seeding media for emergency spare tanks)

3) add some baking soda - pending testing pH and KH again. I believe my 7.6 pH and 4-5dKH is sufficient once I'm running a live bio load and regularly changing water, but maybe the KH is low enough to get used up and pH lowers while trying to cycle up the BB in a fixed small volume of water and no water changes.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Adding fish food would be like adding ammonia but messier and would take longer to work because it would first have to rot and make ammonia. I would skip this.

There is no reason to skip water changes during a cycle. Is your pH and KH fluctuating? If yes I would be adding baking soda anyway and forever. If not, no need.

Air stones are not the most efficient aerators and what good they do happens at the surface, not while they travel through the water column.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

YOU ARE SO CLOSE!

You are coming up with all the right answers on your own (right, at least, insofar as they're the same answers I came up with). I've enjoyed this thread tremendously, thank you!

API test tubes - I use a baby medicine doser (10 ml syringe with no needle) to fill the test tubes, it works better than anything I've found, but relying on color change is inherently inaccurate, especially outside the window of levels the test was designed for.

PH/KH - when cycling my box, I used some Malawi lake buffer salts I had picked up early on. I don't use it in my tank now, but it was great to keep this up high to keep bacteria living. Nitric acid will stop a cycle. A KH above 3 should not swing that hard. Mine out of the tap is right around 3.

That's the less interesting stuff though. You are on the right track to discover the magic secret of the aquarium - Heterotrophic bacteria. So close.

Your point about the cycle is absolutely spot on - "Ammonia + time = cycled." This is true if the only bar you're setting for yourself is the oxidization of ammonia into nitrate. Super low bar. Very low. It will keep your fish from pooping themselves to death, and is necessary, but not all it can be. Ammonia oxidizing creatures are autotrophic like plants. They get chemicals (non-food, like ammonia, nitrite, or CO2) and convert them into food. This conversion makes them safe. What about all the other "Food items" you need something to "Eat" them. This is where heterotrophic bacteria comes in. This is just a word that means "gets is food from something else, not itself." These are the bacteria that "convert food/poo to ammonia." You are spot on in noting that you do not have a food source for them, and so you are not growing them.

What does this mean for an aquarium though? It means that if you cycle your sump with ammonia, you will put fish in it and you will NEVER find ammonia or nitrite in it. It is completely "cycled." As soon as you add fish and then you start adding fish food, you're going to get an explosion of diatoms, green algae, possibly green slime (blue/green algae), cloudy water and sick fish. Why is this?

Think of it this way - Your aquarium has food source now. So it WILL grow bacteria. The bacteria you cycled in the filter are not going to get rid of this new "Food." So something else will. Since it's not effectively growing on a bunch of media in your filter, it's going to grow inside of your aquarium and in your water column. If it's growing in your water column, the fish are constantly having to fight the bacteria off (even if they're benign, they still elicit an immune response from the fish). Lots of bacteria in the water column to fight off, lots of biological energy and resources devoted to that, less to other tasks and it becomes way more likely your fish will be perpetually unhealthy. You'll deal with things like Ich, epistylis, underlying bacertial infections, and bloat constantly. You'll post things on forums asking how to get rid of your diatoms. Slime algae becomes a problem... you add antibiotics... it gets worse.

So growing the heterotrophic bacteria now is super necessary. I came to the same conclusion after running just ammonia - this isn't enough. I had a bottle of expired tetra flakes I added. I added LOTs. Constantly. I added TONS of ammonia. Feed it the old food. I'd feed it daily like there were fish in it. You want it to break down into all the nutrients and things that may be in your tank later, so you have the bacterial colonies to eat it up later and keep it out of your water column. This is why Dave adds so much stuff to a cycling tank. I actually understand this now and agree that it would work. And work very well. I did not have access easily to many of the things he mentioned, and I was halfway through cycling with ammonia when I decided to add other stuff, but I did add bakers yeast and sugar. The difference that made was simply amazing - I wrote about it in the other thread. Immediate nitrite reduction.

Your side note is what tells me you are so super close. You are correct - you're not going to clean any media enough. Everything will become nitrates. That's fine, just be prepared to deal with it. Also, the cleaning - no cleaning. I am doing like you're doing. Watching for water flow to slow down and then I'll clean my blocks. I anticipate this will take LONG time.

Given all that, I decided that simplest was indeed best. I got a ton of foam, grew bacteria on it, and my tank is crystal clear. Looking down from the end, you look through 3 meters of super clear water. No signs of sickness or stress on any of my fish. No explosions of algae.

The most typical suggestion given in the algae discussion is to reduce light and nutrients. I refuse to reduce light. So... No. I also have fish to feed, so I can't really reduce nutrients by not adding them to the tank as conventional wisdom suggests, so I compensate by growing other stuff directly in my sump on HUGE amounts of effective (not ceramic or "Fancy") media to keep nutrients in my display down. My goal (however attainable it is...) is to scrub all the nutrients out of the water with a single pass through the sump.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

DJRansome said:


> Adding fish food would be like adding ammonia but messier and would take longer to work because it would first have to rot and make ammonia. I would skip this.


Given where I'm at in my cycle the thought was not to replace my ammonia source with food but to add it to add the additional nutrients the beneficial bacteria are claimed to need to help them grow (I've had ammonia in my filter for 3 weeks now and still haven't produced any nitrites, I doubt anything could take longer at this point anyways), as well as to cultivate the bacteria that break down the wastes into ammonia. I suppose the counterargument is that I should strive to mechanically filter and remove that waste prior to it having the opportunity to break down into ammonia so as to lessen the nitrate burden as much as possible. And that would make the bacteria needed to break that waste down unnecessary.



> There is no reason to skip water changes during a cycle. Is your pH and KH fluctuating? If yes I would be adding baking soda anyway and forever. If not, no need.


I'm not sure why I would need to be doing water changes at all while fishless cycling. wouldn't that just remove the ammonia I'm adding to try to get the bacteria to grow? The only water change I ever did while ammonia cycling my first 55g 12 years ago was when I thought my nitrites were too high to cycle after day mid-to-late-30-something. I had completed the ammonia to nitrite phase by day 14 so 3 weeks waiting for nitrite to nitrate was making me impatient, and my cycle finished the day after the water change, so I possibly made some faulty conclusions based on that.

When I'm cycled and fully set up, I expect to have quite stable parameters due to the drip waterchanger. 5 drops KH is usually said to be sufficient. But whether it's stable enough to complete a fishless cycle without waterchanges is I think a separate consideration.

I again just went back through my old threads and found one where I asked opinions about whether I should buffer. The conclusion then was a wishy washy probably fine without buffering. Then later in that thread I posted that I discovered my pH had dropped during the process of fishless cycling (I had narrowed the range to 6.4-7.2, while my tap was 7.6). The advice I got (but apparently didn't stick) was that I could buffer it back up with baking soda until the cycle completes to prevent stalling out, and that once I was stocked and started weekly w/c I would be continuously replenishing KH and would be fine without buffering.



> Air stones are not the most efficient aerators and what good they do happens at the surface, not while they travel through the water column.


So the surface area of the bubbles doesn't facilitate gas exchange directly? Just the act of circulating fluid up to the surface then? fair enough. I'm currently turning over a rated 2100GPH in 30 gallons of water so I think I'm already probably aerated as well as I can expect to be anyways.

------------------------------------------------------------------

@strum: I'm not sure what exactly I'm close to just yet. I admit your posts here and in other threads have played a part in nudging me in this direction, but I still have some reservations.

I have had mad diatoms, but I wouldn't have claimed any of the other issues you mention as possible consequences of cycling with only ammonia. I COULDN'T grow green algae. Water was always clear, not cloudy. No sick fish with any of the named diseases. I did have occasional cases of bloat but likely cause being mbuna aggression rather than water quality. I always did very large weekly water changes though and kept nitrates <20ppm. I did have problems occur once I failed to keep up with w/c's and nitrates became elevated - by elevated, I'm talking 20-100ppm rather than <20... levels the aquariumscience author claims as perfectly fine for adult fish. Also my fish grew extremely slowly and never reached the sizes I expected to see the mbuna grow to, despite what I thought were pristine water conditions. My synodontis in particular didn't do well and they seemed more sensitive to elevated nitrates and seemed not to tolerate any parameter swings from the large weekly w/c's I was doing. That's why the drip changer is particularly important to me this setup. I also was more aggressive with sponge rinsing than the aquariumscience author claims is possible without causing a re-cycle. I had 2 AC110's going filled with 2 sponges each and I rotated sponge rinsing between them every other water change. Like, I couldn't see my hand sunk 3in down into a full 5g bucket after squeezing out the sponges. (I also wiped off the "slime" that would build up on the spillway which I'm now discovering was probably actually "biofloc" building up). I started out testing after water changes to make sure I didn't mini-cycle and gave up the regular testing after never finding ammonia or nitrite. That's why I intended to rinse the first foam in my sump out regularly, to remove the solids before they turn into nitrate. I figured it would help manage nitrate and prevent forming the dreaded "nitrate factory"... which always kinda seemed like a myth to me anyways.

Now, looking back, could it be some of my problems were related to never allowing the heterotrophic bacteria to really develop? maybe... Could it be that regular large water changes offset my lack of heterotrophic bacteria? Is that why problems occurred so quickly after falling just a little bit behind on w/c's?

I guess broken down to it's simplest concepts, the debate could be between allowing allowing all waste to break down to nitrate and managing the nitrate vs. managing the waste directly to prevent the nitrate from ever forming. And I guess taking my experiences into consideration I might conclude both approaches work with different tradeoffs. The first likely results in higher nitrate production but may have benefits that extend beyond simply managing nitrate. The 2nd likely keeps nitrate lowers but maybe doesn't provide the additional benefits directly, and those benefits are instead achieved indirectly through the aggressive water changing keeping nitrate <20ppm.

Anyways, it's probably about time I extract myself from this rabbit hole lol


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

FWIW, I checked my pH and KH and found they haven't really changed since I started cycling. I'm still around 7.6 with KH still starting to change at 5 drops, and completely changing with the 6th drop. I did top off some evap loss over the past week. I've added back in 6 liters of tap in total. Still no nitrites, today being day 21 since adding ammonia. I did not dechlorinate the top off so I'm aware I hit my filter with a much diluted low dose of chlorine that gassed off in a handful of hours. If that's what's hitting the breaks on my cycle I'd be surprised but also would accept my wrist slapping and vow not to do that again. (can anyone give me a recommendation for a basic dechlorinator that only dechlorinates and doesn't do (or claim to do...) anything else? Is it Sodium Thiosulfate what I'm looking for?)

Going to be focusing more on getting the rest of the setup straightened out and just let the sump keep doing it's thing it will eventually do.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I see you being really close to having an awesome tank that runs great. You are taking in alternative information and challenging the status quo. It sounds super arrogant, I admit that... but I think that the conventional wisdom in fish-keeping is just not as correct as it could be. I personally disagree with all the answers you got to your other 3 questions above. You already pointed out all the reasons.

I see you close with sentences like this:
"Now, looking back, could it be some of my problems were related to never allowing the heterotrophic bacteria to really develop? maybe... Could it be that regular large water changes offset my lack of heterotrophic bacteria? Is that why problems occurred so quickly after falling just a little bit behind on w/c's?"

I came to exactly the same conclusion for tanks I had run in following conventional wisdom. I was not able to stock as heavy, water was not as clear, parameters would have a tendency to swing hard and fast, and I fought various algaes constantly. 
Anecdotal story here (we all know these prove nothing, but we love them, don't we?): BEFORE I had ready aquariumscience.org, I helped my mom set up a 75 gallon planted angelfish aquarium. I knew all the conventional wisdom. I'd watched all the youtubers discussing the best HOB filters. Knew all about the cycle. She had relatively low stocking on this tank and 2 HOB filters the size of which would indicate that the tank was "over-filtered." Nope. This tank had all kinds of problems. Nana wanted her little fishies to be happy and healthy and she cleaned everything. All the time. 3-4 months since setting this up, I had read aquariumscience.org and began changing my behavior. I bought her a sunsun 303b, filled is only with coarse sponge and put it on her tank. I told her she was allowed to clean anything she wanted, but don't open the canister. All her issues went away within a month once the filter broke in, and she got mad at me, because she didn't have much do to in her tank anymore.

I also agree pretty fully with your last statement:
"I guess broken down to it's simplest concepts, the debate could be between allowing allowing all waste to break down to nitrate and managing the nitrate vs. managing the waste directly to prevent the nitrate from ever forming."
Yes. Once I finally understood this, I elected to go the nitrate route. Mostly because this is what's going to end up happening in your tank anyway. I wrote a lot about this in another thread about whether mechanical filtration is actually necessary. I contend that if you're not going to frequently clean stuff out before it breaks down, you're better off letting it all break down instead of trying to clean it out and disturbing the biofloc. Again, I'm taking a queue from the reef-guys. If you want to manage nitrate in a tank without water changes, do what the reef guys do. Change your mechanical filtration every 3 days. Get a protein skimmer to pull stuff out before it breaks down into nitrate, and clean it frequently. Maybe get a felt roll to constantly keep everything clean instead of filter socks. Possibly get an algae scrubber to take care of the rest that you didn't pull out before it broke down to nitrates. Then get a TON of liverock to just eat the remaining nitrates and only have just a few fish in there because if you put too many, nitrates will build too fast.... It's the last one that keeps me out of reefing. I want lots of fish.

The other key to this is to feed a really high protein food (Also make sure it has enough roughage to stave off bloat, but I'm not going to have that debate here). This seems counter intuitive because the higher the protein, the more nitrate the food will leave in the water, but what's more important here is what's NOT there. What is not there is a lot of carbohydrates. Carbs break down into sugar. Sugar is used by heterotrophic bacteria to make bioflocs. If you have too much sugar, too much ineffective biofloc builds up and plugs your filter. It's the same reason I stopped putting any water conditioners that contain Aloe in there. Aloe is just sugar. Note - when I start a new tank, I DO use aloe for exactly this reason. I want to jump-start the formation of biofloc.

I personally do not dechlorinate top-off water. I know this is OK for me because my locality does not use chloramines which can stay in the water for a very long time. My municipality doses chlorine gas only to 1ppm. By the time it comes out of my tap, the water routinely tests under 1ppm for total chlorine. If you have chloramine, though, this could actually have an impact on the cycling bacteria, but I honestly doubt it.

Have you considered a bacteria in a bottle product to get the cycle started? Or a handful of dirt? :wink: I've actually had pretty good luck with Fritz Zyme 7 bacteria if you can find some and are getting impatient. Use it to start though, and then build your own bacteria.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I'm not really getting impatient... Yet. That will come once I have all of my other projects done and my sump still isn't cycled... :? :roll: But, there is a subtle difference between being impatient and not wanting to waste time and effort. It's day 24. I expected Nitrites by now for sure. They're about 10days late based on my own experience with near identical base water parameters. The difference is less ammonia initially (both ppm and total) now vs. past. I wouldn't have expected that to slow things down so much. I'm starting to wonder how much longer do I wait before suspecting something present in the sump inhibiting bacterial growth, dump the water, rinse everything out, and start over... (Not there yet but... The idea is starting to grow in the back of my head)

I read about the dirt thing. I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step yet. I do think I have to draw a hard line at adding urine though :lol: . I did end up throwing some of my old food in. I figure what's the worst thing can happen, if it doesn't help and gets too dirty I can just clean it. I wanted to ask you strum, I know I've seen you say that anything in an established tank (food or waste) breaks down in about 3 days. But I still see little pellets in my foam that definitely aren't breaking down yet. How long should it take the heterotrophic bacteria colony to start growing initially to begin breaking them down? I don't think I need to be adding any more food in until what is in there starts breaking down. All the pellets were definitely caught in about the first inch to inch and a half of the first red 20 ppi foam. Does the heterotrophic bacteria feed on the solids directly? Does that mean the bacteria will primarily form in the first sponge? Or does food and waste sort of break down into smaller particles and disperse throughout the water column so that the heterotrophic bacteria can grow everywhere?

I definitely had a film of flaky white something growing on the outside of my vinyl tubing. I was hoping it was the good bacteria I'm trying to grow. I sort of rubbed it all off of the vinyl tubing so it would anchor into the filter foam and hopefully start exponentially growing in there.

Also I'm not intending to challenge conventional wisdom / status quo. I've learned most of what I do now from this site and it's members, as well as a couple other places around the internet. But really only have a small amount of personal experience myself. So I am just always trying to keep learning, because one thing I do know is that it's very rare that something in any field can be perfected and then never improved upon again.

There are still people out there who would consider any fishless cycling to be "progressive". When I went to my LFS 12 years ago to buy fish for the first time, I talked with the owner (very experienced with cichlids, he's dove (dived?) In malawi even) and mentioned that I knew all about the nitrogen cycle and did fishless cycling so I knew I was ready to add lots of fish safely. He looked at me kind of funny, asked, "what did I add fish food or something?" Told him no I added pure ammonia and waited until it all turned to nitrate within 24 hours. He just kind of looked at me funny, dismissively, said something about he doesn't know about all that. But of course he still happily sold me whatever fish I asked for.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Test from last night. Today is the start of week 5, day 29. opcorn: opcorn: opcorn:

I started adding more ammonia and some fish food April 5th so it's been 10 days now at higher ammonia concentrations. So if too little ammonia at the start was the issue I'd give it until Monday to see nitrites (14 days after upping the ammonia).

If nothing by then? idk time to do a water change or something. I'd have to start suspecting there's something in the tank/water interfering with the cycling process. Maybe try the dirt thing idk  .

I wish I had other things to talk about but haven't really made other progress this past week. My youngest got sick with croup and was home with me a couple days, work got busier so I haven't had free lunch breaks I could sneak downstairs and get something done. Did a little bit more electrical work last weekend to get my basement lights on switches and pretty much at the point where I can throw the breaker and start disconnecting and rearranging the existing wiring. Just want to make sure I have a good block of time before I do that because I won't have lights (or basement sump pump) once I start until I finish, other than whatever I can plug in to the outlets on a separate circuit. Going to have family visiting from out of town from tomorrow evening through sunday so won't get anything big accomplished this weekend either. In the absence of making any other progress, I test water parameters and spend too much time wondering why that pretty shade of cyan blue never turns purple.

What I need to do is knock off some low hanging fruit and wash some rocks and rinse some sand. Even though it won't really get me closer to adding fish any faster, it'll make me feel better to do something fun like play around with hardscape layouts or something 

One other thing that makes me happy is that, while I haven't yet located a source of available synodontis multipunctata/grandiops yet, I've discovered granulosa is now somewhat more available in the hobby than it was 10 years ago. There's 1 US vendor the folks over at planet catfish were talking about that sells legit F1 tank bred juveniles, and currently have some available. That's a unicorn of a fish I've always admired and might just make it's way into my stocking plans.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

That ammonia result is an odd shade of green, seems to have some blue tint to it. Maybe it's different in person though, what PPM does it come closest to on your color card?

Sorry to hear about your youngest! I remember when my younger brother had similar croup issues and Mom took him into the bathroom and steamed it up to help ease his symptoms.

Glad to hear about getting some work done and understand trying to find time to get it done efficiently.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I noticed that about the color too, looking a little weird like that. The picture is about how it looks in person. It's closest to 4ppm but should be about 6ppm I think just based on how much ammonia I've added. Not sure how much the food I put in added to that but I have another picture from like 5 days ago and looks about the same so either it hasn't been changing that much or it's actually way above 8ppm and that's what the color looks like once you reach the end of the kits capability to discern colors. I think 8ppm is supposed to be darker though.

Yeah croup burned through our daycare, all the kids were getting it. Fortunately the cough and congestion weren't too bad but he did run a fever for 2 days straight. Getting back to normal now so we're in the clear.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I'm thinking that your house is very clean and well sealed? With fishless cycling, we're depending on the critters we need getting into the tank somehow- from the air? Skin in the tanks? Fish food, like has been suggested...? I have personally never done that. I've always seeded with something. My favorite and most effective was Fritzyme 7. Or... ya know... dirt  .

I don't see any concerns with the color of the API test. Once you get past about 4, they start becoming a high-ammonia color I refer to as "Meaninglessly green."


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Like I mentioned before I keep having weird deja vu here. I pondered in my thread back in 2009, where does the bacteria come from that we want to grow in the filter? Answers given was that it is/was everywhere and the process of cycling just farms what is present everywhere in small amounts into a large colony. Another answer is it arrives airborne. I joked with someone back then about my house being too clean to have bacteria. Joked, as if it wasn't a real possibility.

Last time I was wondering how I would know when I got seeded naturally. I was having lots of thoughts about doubling time and why wasn't there a time where I would see some nitrites prior to all the ammonia being consumed. It was said back then (or at least I heard) that the doubling time was around a day. If that were the case, there should have been a least a couple days where nitrites were detectable before ammonia was all used up and if I didn't see that did that mean I just didn't have ANY bacteria present? But I, like most others, witnessed the ammonia disappear all at once the same time nitrites shot off the chart (magic day 14). Well someone else claimed the doubling time was more like 4 hours which makes more sense, because that means the colony size would grow 64x bigger each day, and long story short doing the math, the day before all the ammonia disappears (on day 14 in my case), the colony only would have been large enough to consume just 1.5% of the ammonia the prior 13 days combined.

Anyways, I don't really think my house is clean and well sealed, at the bacterial level. We open windows and have recently, we don't use air purifiers, our furnace filter is only coarse enough to catch dust and pet hair not bacteria. I have young kids who track who knows what who knows where. That said, the sump is down in the basement where there's not really any air circulating and there is a top on the sump to reduce evap but not sealed so tight to prevent it entirely. There's a cutout left over from where the HOB used to be, and my hands go in the tank every time I check params. I think I even left the cover off overnight a couple times accidently.

I'm hoping it's just the low ammonia concentration I started with. Recall I started at 1ppm and over the first ~18 days it pretty much dissipated down to nothing again without showing up as nitrite or nitrate. Today is 14 days after I upped the ammonia concentration and it has stayed high since. I did not detect nitrites yesterday morning but given the math problem I worked through above it would not be surprising to detect nothing yesterday morning and then have the nitrites present this afternoon when I test. So I'm crossing my fingers for today's test.

Or, if somehow I just started out so sterile that I hadn't had that first introduction of a single bacterium into the water to start things off, impossible as that is to believe, then maybe another 1-3 days until it's been 14 days since I added food (don't recall the exact day I added) along with the claimed trace amounts of BB in the food.

If I don't see some nitrites this week I think my first step needs to be to just do a big water change, maybe some chemical/soap or some such that doesn't dissipate got in on the new media/equipment or when I rinsed the vinyl tubing in the up stairs utility sink or something. The water in the sump does get more bubbly than I expected when I squirt water in from my medicine syringe for example, or when shaking the test tube. And I've noted that submerged surfaces felt slippery (which I had hoped was organic film and not some chemical). It's probably nothing but I'm starting to suspect everything since I'm not seeing progress. (it's not the ammonia though, or at least I really doubt it, because the ammonia bottle doesn't bubble at all when I shake it). Hopefully I can just change the water to remove/dilute whatever it is enough, and its not something that would require a more thorough rinsing and tearing everything apart and really starting over.

I did have that white film grow on my submerged vinyl tubing that I assumed was something organic. It hasn't come back after I rubbed it off, but there is a more brownish looking film/shading near the tubing discharge on the inside (I haven't shut the pump off to see if I can scrape it out yet). Kinda assuming that if the water is ok enough to grow whatever those presumed organics are, it shouldn't be toxic to nitrifying bacteria, but idk.

But also I wonder because I'm not sure if the heterotrophic bacteria are showing up to break down the fish food I threw in. It's been nearly 2 weeks and I can still see the pellets where they got caught by the foam. They're all swelled up like they absorbed a lot of water, but they don't appear to be "rotting" or being consumed by heterotrophic bacteria or anything... unless the little circles that still look like the pellets are little ball shaped pockets of the heterotrophic bacteria that consumed the pellets and then just stayed there as "biofloc"? I haven't been adding pellets every day because I figured what's the point if they're not breaking down yet, plus having plenty of ammonia present already. Downside of doing it how I'm doing it I guess. If I was just using fish food, I'd get confirmation when the ammonia showed up.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Rhinox said:


> So I'm crossing my fingers for today's test.


No Nitrites today...
They are still eluding me!
Now I go cut grass.

...maybe the bacteria will like my haiku? :lol:


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

Jeeeze man..... in a bad kind of way, this thing is becoming sort of epic. :-? 
-
Hmmmmm.... is there any chance you could haul some of your foam filtration media over to a friends house with an established aquarium in it? I've found that vigorously wringing/rubbing new filtration media together with fully cycled/established media in a bucket partially filled with tank water, can help in colonizing the new media with the beneficial bacteria you need.
inoculation.
And what the heck, at this point you may need to try something new to get those little guys growing in there for you. :?


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I agree. This is turning out epically strange. If I were in your situation, I would go find a culture to inoculate my sump with. That being said, I also would have absolutely lost my mind by now. I would have done it probably on day 2. I have like NO patience... which is why I've never even tried it.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Epic fail, maybe!  

I don't really get it. Done this before. Told others how to do this before. Thought I knew what I was doing. Keep waiting for that Aha! moment where something gets figured out or makes sense.

I've mentioned a few weeks ago things underwater feeling slippery, I was thinking/hoping was a slimy biofilm growth. I mentioned recently that the water seems bubbly, particularly when shaking test tubes. Maybe it's normal. I can't recall if it's always been bubbly or if that didn't really start until I started adding fish food. Could be proteins from the food breaking down in the water? My tanks have always had that thin film on the surface in the past. I would always try to skim it off during water changes. But I don't recall it ever making my water bubbly. Last night I added more fish food and disturbed some more gunk that must have settled down under my tubing. This morning I did another param test since I haven't actually tested ammonia for a few days. Well when I rinsed out my syringe in tank water like I normally do with a few squirts into the tank, some sudsy bubbles formed, and the bubbles didn't dissipate right away. Not for about 30 seconds. Then I couldn't repeat it again right away. So likely some film on the surface caused the bubbles then once the surface was broken up the film broke up, went into the sponge, or dispersed into the water. Did my water test, shook the vials, got a good cm of foamy bubbles on the top that didn't go away unless I tipped back and forth a few times.

It makes me paranoid. I've never seen sudsy bubbling in any of my tanks before. I don't recall any time in the past seeing so many bubbles in water test vials. I've used HOB's with lowered tank water level to cause air bubbles to form that way but they dissipate, don't form surface suds that persist. I've had my sump returns above the water level creating bubbles, but not suds. Every water change I've ever done for at least part of the time the water hose has been above the water level spraying into the tank and never have I ever created suds.

So, I know I totally buried the lede here but, I had the thought to lift the return tube above the surface and see what happens and I was pretty shocked to be able to create this:








That just doesn't seem normal to me. Immediately thought oh no, soap! How? Wanted to dump and rinse everything right then... And yet...

It doesn't seem soapy. The suds don't have the rainbow in them. They dissipated almost immediately once I submerged the outlet, they didn't stick around like suds in a sink or bubble bath. I couldn't pick them up with my hand. They don't feel slippery when I try. They don't smell like soap. Honestly, they smell like... well 2 things. 1) it smells like my aquaclear sponges used to smell when I rinsed them. and 2) there's this sewer plant back in my hometown with a rec trail going right past it. I used to run that trail working out when I was younger, it goes right past these ponds that are always bubbling/aerating. They have the same smell. Not an unpleasant sewage smell, but distinct. Sewage plants use basically the same bacterial processes as aquarium to break down waste. I think I'm smelling the bacterial smell.

More evidence... There is a familiar biofilm growing inside the vinyl tube near the outlet. I disturbed the tubing enough making my bubbles that I had to reorganize it, so when I stopped the pump I scraped as much out as I could reach to go find a home in the actual filter media. There was film on the rubbery top part of the submerged heaters. I rubbed some of that off and it should find it's way through the pump and over to the foam. Then there was this:








You can clearly see the difference between the cord above the waterline vs. submerged. I took a good scrape of that with my fingers and got a good teaspoon of brown, sludgy, clearly recognizable biofilm and smeared that stuff straight into the red foam on the other side. idk why I can see it growing on the wires/tubing/heater and not on the foam or bioballs, but it's something.

So I think... I'm feeling like I'm right on the cusp here. I can't explain the sudsy bubbles but can't deny that some kind of organic bacterial growth is happening. Eventually before I add fish I was going to have to dump 100% to move the sump and hook up to the main tank anyways but for now I don't want to disturb it. I'm thinking any day now I should be seeing nitrites.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

What kind of ammonia did you cycle with again? Did you do the shake test on it to ensure there were no detergents in it? I know that when I wanted to start my tank last summer, I couldn't find any pure ammonia in my town (25K people) and I wound up ordering Fritz ammonium chloride to ensure I avoided any potential nasties. Obviously detergents in the ammonia will cause the bubbles and stop the cycle.

I have also heard that ammonia alone will cause water to bubble but the bubbles will dissipate quickly. I suppose I could test this...

The biofilm on the wires looks exactly as expected to me. All the tubes and wires going into my media cycling box had the same biofilm on them. It actually grew thick enough that it would slough off.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Austin's Clear Ammonia from Tractor Supply.









It doesn't bubble at all when I shake and seems to be about 2% ammonium hydroxide. I used the 10% ace hardware janitorial strength stuff in the past but there's no ace hardware's near me anymore so I found this stuff instead.

Not sure why ammonia would cause water to bubble in the tank but not in the 2% solution in the ammonia bottle. Unless it's because the water in the tank is not pure water, where the bottle probably has distilled water as the base? Anyways, the bubbles I was making with the outlet hose dissipated almost immediately once I resubmerged the outlet.

The biofilm is what gives me hope I'm close to seeing changes in the ammonia and nitrite tests.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

This just in from the Stuff-Rhinox-Already-Knows-Desk: That ammonia should be fine. I looked it up on Amazon and there are multiple reviews of folks who used it to cycle, so... Dirt?


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

....Inoculation?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

So about this dirt... can't just be any old dirt I surmise? Would want some kind of "live" dirt from soil where plants are growing, probably close to plant roots? Do I like, go dig up some dirt from my lawn, or landscaping, or some indoor plant potting soil, or what? Outside dirt, we have a lawn service and weed control so like probably not the best choice...

But... if the problem is after 5 weeks I just don't happen to have a beneficial bacteria seed make it naturally into my sump, how do I explain the biofilmy stuff growing on my wires and tubing? Why am I not seeing that same biofilm stuff growing on my filter media too? Doesn't the presence of that biofilm mean I'm already seeded? I'm also allegedly adding seed bacteria in the fish food I've been tossing in. If it's just not reproducing or multiplying fast enough, what does additional seed in the form of dirt or inoculate accomplish?

I really thought it was going to happen this week, but still no nitrites today. I also did a quick KH test and if anything I got an extra drop or 2 probably due to evaporation and top off, so while I didn't check pH (other vials were upstairs) I doubt it has crashed somehow. I did a chlorine check during a 4 liter top off. Tank prior, nothing detected. 2L bottle, after filling, capping, and carrying downstairs was only reading trace levels. After dumping all 4 liters into the tank, no detectable chlorine. So, I don't think I've been carelessly nuking my budding bacteria colony every time I top off. Water temp has been consistently mid-80's forever. I think I originally had it set at like 86F and turned it down to 84F because everytime I looked at the tank the heater was on. Must be getting close to the max rise out of that 100w aqueon.

Does flow velocity play a role? <snipping a lot of rambling> I calculated flow velocity through my sump filter media to be 0.75 inches per second, compared to 1.0 inches per second through an aquaclear 110 (what I cycled before from scratch like this). Feels like those numbers are close enough together that I wouldn't expect drastically different results.

Could my O2 be low? is there a test for that? I have high turnover but not really using it to agitate the surface. There is a big swirling vortex on the return side, I can see it when I throw food in. But compared to a HOB where the flow was being dumped back onto the surface creating a surface wave, I'm sucking water from close to the bottom and returning it all close to the bottom so maybe I'm not getting as good oxygenation as I think? Should I try rigging up some kind of spray bar or just try to rearrange the tubing so it's breaking up the surface? DJR said airstones aren't efficient, but I have that air pump sitting in a box, is there something I can be using it for?

I think if I'm being honest, I am starting to get frustrated and a bit demotivated by the lack of cycling progress. I feel like if I was cycled or near cycled by now I'd feel more urgency to get the rest of the stuff done I need to in order to get up and running, but without a cycled filter I'm taking my time more than I wanted to. Yesterday was the end of 5 full weeks waiting for nitrites. Today starts week six, but it feels more like:


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Yeah, go ahead and throw the air stone in. I actually disagree on that particular point. Bubbles have a tremendous amount of turbulent water around them as they rise, creating gas exchange. However, if they just make turbulent water at the top, the effect is the exact same, and the argument is immaterial. There is no way it could hurt anything to bubble it through the media. If you don't want to do that, then bubble the water in the return side. Even though I think that air stones are very effective, I don't use them because they are noisy.

Dirt - I mean, yeah. Live dirt. Or compost... Or dirt out of the bottom of a year-round ditch (I'm gonna get yelled at for this one), or a pond or some sand and stones from a stream. This is actually an approach advocated for in Matthew Owens' "An Alternative Aquarium." You are not going to pick up anything crazy that will kill your fish and pollute the sump forever. Probably. Don't collect from a ditch that could have runoff containing pesticides though.

You could get a handful of gravel from a friend's tank. Around here, you can get little anubias plants from (Local big box store) from their tanks, not the emerged grown in the tubes with the gel. Could inoculate with that? I'm a fan of Fritzyme 7. It actually works. Saying that makes me feel like a shill, but I've used it, and it works.

Biofilm - It's super possible that you have biofilm growing that's not converting nitrogen...I guess. The wrong biofilm?

Hang in there though! All the time is a sunk cost. I bet it's going to happen super soon.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Also, as promised. Here is the write up on the simplicity battery backup. I hope it makes sense. 
https://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/vie ... 1#p3147291


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

+1 on the aquatic plant recommendation from El' Hefe'. 8) 
-
The brown foam stuff they pack those plant roots in, is usually loaded with the beneficial bacteria you need. Inoculation. Just vigorously apply it like you would with established, foam filter media. And yes, if you can run an air stone under your filter media somehow and have it bubble up through it? That effect WILL definitely enhance growth of the beneficial bacteria you need. And yes, Old School/Old Tech air stones can absolutely provide a lot of extremely beneficial service to an aquarium. SenorStrum nailed it for a lot of people when stating his own reason for not using an air stone is because of the noise produced when in operation. :?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I live basically right up against Lake Erie so I've got access to shoreline substrate for example or there's a few little streams though my neighborhood I could go dig up some dirt or plants from. I actually considered digging up a couple buckets of sand from our "beach" access to use as my substrate at one point.

I do like the plant idea a lot though. I suppose I would probably just rub all the potting media into my filter and then not really care about the plant itself? It would consume ammonia and wouldn't really live long anyways without light.

I can very easily drop some airstones under the bag of bio balls. I'm not sure I can do anything for the foam. at least not as easily. I don't want to leave a gap underneath. But if I put an airstone just upstream of the foam the flow should push the air into the foam anyways. I can leave a gap between the foam stages and put airstones inbetween. I could theoretically cut some pockets in the bottom of the foam to recess some airstones in there to really get some air directly under the foam. Or I can cut a little slot and just shove some airlines into the foam. I don't think I care too much about the noise. I especially don't right now while cycling, and if somehow the air is louder and more annoying than I remember my overflows being I can probably shut the air off once I'm cycled and be ok at that point. I was sorta thinking I could always have a sponge filter running in my sump that I could move to a different tank for quarantine or isolating in a pinch if needed.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I wouldn't worry about cutting the foam and all that, just aerate the water really well before it goes through the media, and you'll accomplish the same thing.

I was able to find little anubias nana petite in rock wool substrate inside a little terra cotta pot. The plant should be removed from the rock wool anyway. Be a little careful with this stuff because after a good squeeze or two it will begin to fall apart, but squeeze it and rub it around on the foam and stuff. Should be easy and GTG. I have a huge soft spot for these plants, and many folks say they can get haps and peacocks to leave plants alone. If you want to keep it, just get some super glue gel and glue it to a rock and leave it in there. Anubias will survive for quite some time even with no light at all - they are very hardy plants.

I also have been wondering about sump sponge filters. I have not yet tried it to see how loud it may or may not be. I'll probably try it this afternoon. I have some sponge filters out of quarantine tanks that now need a long term life support. 
I am not convinced, however, that the sponge filter needs air to stay alive.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

I got some air running. I bought 3 pick style air stones and 12" strip. But only had enough airline tubing to get 2 pucks going. I put them under my bioballs. Yeah the air is loud. Probably won't run it permanently. I also threw in every old sponge from my old aqua clears. Wherever there was an empty space. I know it's said the bb don't go dormant and survive once dried out. Figured can't hurt tho, more surface area and maybe let's me set up a hob on another tank in the future.

I looked at the plants in petsmart and wasn't impressed by the tiny little pvc cuts they had the roots growing in. Not a lot of media to seed my filter with for $5/$6 a plant.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

When I woke up on sunday I went down to check on things and the airstones were making bubbles throught the bioballs:









I thought maybe I didn't want them under the bioballs after all, I'd just set the airstones up on the same side as the outlet to make sure the water going into the media was all fully aerated and oxygenated as well as could be. I was able to get all 3 airstone pucks going that way. The 12" airstone strip was underwhelming by comparison to the pucks. After pulling the bioballs out again and trying to shove them back in between the 2 blue foam blocks I had the realization that even in the mesh bag it's annoying to get the bioballs in and out. I need to build a little box for them or something if I'm going to keep using them. For now, I actually just took them out. I shoved all my old aquaclear sponges in the gap. There's 5 AC110 sponges standing on end which fill the width just about right. On top of those I stacked 6 AC70 sponges. They don't fill the space as well so water can flow around them some but I figure this might be better than having the bioballs there anyways and if I want or need to set up one of the HOB's sometime down the road maybe I'll already have some cycled filter foam. That is, you know, if BIOLOGY still works in my house and my filter ever cycles. It does mess with my OCD a bit though. I want to impulse buy another poret block and cut it to fit there just right instead.









As for the bioballs idk what I'm going to do with them. Maybe build a little box for them and try to get them back in, maybe sell them, maybe go back to plan A and throw them in a bucket with some ammonia and an air pump and try to get some bacteria growing on them that way. Maybe try the dirt thing in the bucket with them. Idk. They didn't have any sort of detectable biofilm growing on them when I took them out that I could see or feel.

Ammonia still high. Nitrite still non-existent. Whatever biofilm that was growing on my heater and electrical wires hasn't grown back wherever I scraped it off last weekend. There's still some inside the vinyl tubing. The airstones in the outlet side are still making a lot of foamy bubbles at the surface that still don't seem quite like soap. I've been trying to scrape/skim the bubbles off to remove them and as soon as I do they just fall apart. It it's just from the ammonia then maybe with all the fish food I've added the ammonia has climbed a lot higher than I've realized. Definitely doubting the aquarium science site's claims about high ammonia speeding up cycling rather than slowing it down as conventionally believed.

In other news, at least I got to see some fish at petsmart. I'd never buy from there but I was surprised to find maybe 5 nice looking demasoni for sale amongst some interesting tankmates haha.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

This caught me totally off-guard today but...

HOLY **** IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING!!!!!
(sorry cichlid-forum automatic all caps popup it's a justified use of all caps this time  )









Full story, I went down to investigate a couple things.

1) my old bottle of prime, did it still work (it does)
2) what ammonia concentration am I truly at (diluted 10 to 1 tap water to tank water and reads about 1ppm, so 10ppm-ish)
3) does a super dose of prime still block ammonia from being shown in the API test (sort of - a 50-50 mix of tank and super primed tap water only registered about 1.5ppm when it should have registered about 5ppm based on the first result)
4) does the water in the tank still foam up if I dilute it with tap water (yes it does, a cup full of tank water mixed in to about 1L of tap water foams up quite a bit when shook)

Since I still had a high amount of ammonia I figured it was still (lack of) business as usual but out of habit and did the nitrite test. At first it looked like it was going to stay blue as it's always been. So I started cleaning up and got ready to head back upstairs, looked again, and whoa, purple!

It caught me off guard because in the past, by the time I saw purple, the green was back to yellow, and when nitrites appeared for me before they turned the vial dark purple as soon as the drops hit the water. But, yay!

(I hope the 2nd half of the cycle doesn't take as long......)


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)




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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

My leading theory (with help from another online community) is that excess proteins in the water from the food breaking down is both causing the sudsing and interfering with gas exchange. I added aeration last weekend and shortly after things started progressing. Correlation may equal causation sometimes. If true I think the proteins should eventually get converted to ammonia by the heterotrophic bacteria and if that happens the sudsing should go away. Until then I probably shouldn't throw any more food in.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Seems plausible to me. I never tried cycling from air, so perhaps the technique requires seeding? Who knows.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Haven't updated in a little bit. Cycle is still progressing. Took a few days after seeing nitrites but ammonia finally dropped to zero. Haven't been keeping good record (shame on me) but wanna say it was friday/saturday when I tested and was still finding ammonia (nitrite got darker purple so I knew it was still progressing) then monday I think when I tested again and ammonia was yellow. I added about 4ppm ammonia then and haven't checked again yet. Meant to do it yesterday. Will do today and likely need to add more ammonia (and get on a better regular schedule every day or every other day). I checked my KH when ammonia dropped to zero and it has already started reducing. I've lost about a drop, drop and a half (instead of changing color between 5-6 drops, it changed a little bit at 4 drops and finished at 5 drops). So, planning to add some baking soda next time I add some top off water just to make sure the cycling process doesn't drop my pH and stall out. Assuming normal progression, I should see nitrites getting back down to zero in a couple weeks. If whatever caused the first half to take so long also affects the 2nd half, who knows?

Since cycling is progressing I'm feeling more urgency to get the rest of my projects done. Last weekend I finally had no visitors or other obligations so I had the time I needed to get my basement lights wired into switches so that's another project off the to-do list.

(sidenote: never make assumptions about how things appear to be wired... I got a bit of a surprise, a 12/3 romex cable was carrying power from the box to the first light in the chain - the black supplied hot to the lights, the red was spliced to the sump pump line in the light box _on a different breaker_, which of course I overlooked. Both circuits shared the common neutral back to the box. Well I unhooked light number 2 in the chain first, after tripping the _lights_ breaker only. Diligently, I used a no-touch wire tester and couldn't understand why it kept intermittently beeping a faint detection. Long story short I'm fortunate I didn't create a short between the "live" neutral and ground with me providing the connection in the middle. Don't be dumb like me kids, call an electrician. Or, at least remember that you thought there was a separately labeled "sump" breaker in the panel and figure out how the lights and sump can be on 2 separate breakers when there's only 1 line coming out of the box that goes to both, BEFORE starting to disconnect wires.... anyways, enough of this PSA. no harm no foul... this time...)

Next major project is going to be to frame a wall in the (fish room) *ahem* I mean, "storage" room between the storage side and future basement bathroom side. That wall will have the requisite plumbing (supply and drain) in order to install the utility sink in the (fish ro-) _STORAGE_ room to have a better, temperature controlled water supply to fill the tank with. Currently my only option is to fill with an outside cold garden hose spigot and bring the hose in through the window. Which is exactly what I did when I filled the sump. I can do the same for the 125 but it will be a lot more cold water to bring up to temperature. If the wall/plumbing/utility sink project drags on too long, I may do just that just to get water in the tank, get sand and rocks in, etc. But I can't do water changes that way (without another tank to bring water up to temperature first) and I can't set up my drip system until I get the drain line in (which is part of the plumbing project) so... yeah, need to get that project done.



SenorStrum said:


> Seems plausible to me. I never tried cycling from air, so perhaps the technique requires seeding? Who knows.


If by "cycling from air" you mean not using anything to seed just letting the bacteria naturally form... idk I did things the same way conceptually that I did when I fishless cycled my first 55g in 2009. I wouldn't have expected the differences between then and now to change the results so much. Took 14 days to see nitrite back then. No seeding.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Today I went down and tested and found the ammonia I had added last time had dropped to zero as expected. A little bit more KH was consumed but not a full drop. I went ahead and added a tablespoon of baking soda with my topoff water and that brought the sump up to 10 drops. That should be sufficient for a while I would think. Dosed ammonia back up to like 6-8 ppm. I'm going out of town tomorrow and won't be back until sunday night so hopefully I'll remember to test and see if all the ammonia gets consumed by then. While the concentration is high in terms of ppm, that's about the right amount of ammonia to add to have 1-2ppm in the full system volume once set up.

I also did my first "sort of" water change. Really only changed 4 liters. I used a cup to skim as much of the suds that are still present as could fit into two 2L bottles. The suds don't stay sudsy once the aeration is removed and the resulting liquid is generally clear. so... not sure what exactly the suds are. A water soluble protein maybe? On the return side of the sump I had a film of the oil slick protein that I'm used to seeing build up. I skimmed all that out as well. Skimming all that out doesn't seem to have much changed the quantity of suds forming above the airstones. But seeing as cycling is still progressing and I'll eventually dump 100% of the water in the sump to move it under the stand I'm not really too concerned about the sump looking a bit like a bubble bath currently.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

The suds interest me. I don't know why I didn't mention it before. My guess is that you had no cycle going and I assumed things - let me explain.

When I had my media cycling in the box in the garage, I absolutely DID have a ton of foam and "sludge" in my box. Anecdotally speaking, it seems that the more ammonia I added, the more foam I got. I also added a bunch of fish food. I had assumed at the time that this was a product of the fluidized media knocking incredibly fast growing "beneficial bacteria" and associated biofloc getting trapped in the air bubbles. In fact, the resulting sludge that formed on the end of the box opposite the air stone looked most like protein skimmer scum. Here's why I bring it up - I assumed at the time that it was from the BB, but it's quite possible it was that and the fish food. It left a film on the box I used. This foam would NOT dissipate with time. In all senses, it acted like protein skimmer foam.

When I say cycling from air, yeah, you got it. I mean just letting whatever archaea exist in the house to fall in the tank and get the cycle going. I used to brew beer, and the idea of just letting whatever get in there instead of inoculating with my intended yeast gives me shivers. This from the guy who suggested compost. LOL. My brain is broken, I admit it.

Oh yeah, wiring story. Once, in a past life, I was tasked with wiring up a dormitory block in South America with basic lights and switches. Super simple stuff. Building was made out of red volcanic brick. 
While leaning against the wall working on wiring the light switch, I got shocked. Thinking this was strange, I went back and checked the breaker. It was off, so I went back and got back to work. A few minutes in, shocked again. OK - this is getting weird. I got the multimeter to figure out what in the world was still hot. After testing all the wires, I concluded that nothing was hot. Then I tested the wall. The wall was completely soaking wet. To lay the volcanic brick, it has to be completely soaked in water. Otherwise, the firing process causes the brick to turn to almost pumice, and it would just soak the moisture right out of the grout and the wall will crumble. I poked the lead into the wet brick and discovered it was feeding 78 volts back through the pre installed Romex. I informed the custodian of the property that his building was possessed and immediately ended my American expatriate south-American electrical career.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

> When I had my media cycling in the box in the garage, I absolutely DID have a ton of foam and "sludge" in my box. Anecdotally speaking, it seems that the more ammonia I added, the more foam I got. I also added a bunch of fish food. I had assumed at the time that this was a product of the fluidized media knocking incredibly fast growing "beneficial bacteria" and associated biofloc getting trapped in the air bubbles. In fact, the resulting sludge that formed on the end of the box opposite the air stone looked most like protein skimmer scum. Here's why I bring it up - I assumed at the time that it was from the BB, but it's quite possible it was that and the fish food. It left a film on the box I used. This foam would NOT dissipate with time. In all senses, it acted like protein skimmer foam.


So did you ever get rid of them? Did they go away on their own eventually? Or did you just change water after finishing cycling and they went away? Difference with mine is they do dissipate quickly on their own, if the air is shut off. Now that ammonia is going away I can conclude it's not caused by the ammonia. And if it's protein or something organic I would like to think that some kind of bacteria would eventually grow to eat it. The end opposite the airstones in mine got the surface film that I skimmed off and that film hasn't come back since. There was something that settled on the bottom on the pump side and I just stirred it up and sent it back through to get trapped in the filter or something. A little bit more is accumulating since. Not sure if it's just gunk or bacteria or what.



> I poked the lead into the wet brick and discovered it was feeding 78 volts back through the pre installed Romex. I informed the custodian of the property that his building was possessed and immediately ended my American expatriate south-American electrical career.


haha! Did you ever figure out what happened? idk about wet volcanic brick but apparently concrete is a pretty good conductor and unfinished concrete basements, being buried in the ground as they are, make a great connection to "ground" (why unfinished basements need GFI but finished basements don't. Apparently carpet or whatever flooring makes a good enough insulator.) Maybe a short from another circuit traveling through the brick?


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

I didn't ever care to get rid of it, as I assumed it was the biofloc that I wanted, so I actually would stir it back into the K1. I eventually took the K1 out of there and ran it as primary bio on my reef for about a month. It seemed/seems to have affected nothing. I now have a few liters fluidized, but it's all out of my system otherwise. Then again, remember, I had no fish in this box. Just a foot of K1 and some seriously toxic water I was growing bacteria in. I could water change it out but more food and ammonia and it came back. It actually left a film on the box.










Unfinished basement wall would be a great analog for the wall in question here. I never did figure out what happened. I left shortly after that incident. My guess was aliens. Probably the ancient kind. Perhaps gremlins - there was no bell on the building, so...


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

> I didn't ever care to get rid of it, as I assumed it was the biofloc that I wanted, so I actually would stir it back into the K1. I eventually took the K1 out of there and ran it as primary bio on my reef for about a month. It seemed/seems to have affected nothing. I now have a few liters fluidized, but it's all out of my system otherwise. Then again, remember, I had no fish in this box. Just a foot of K1 and some seriously toxic water I was growing bacteria in. I could water change it out but more food and ammonia and it came back. It actually left a film on the box.


hmm. My foam seems to be a little different then. Mine dissipates and doesn't leave a film. I probably didn't add as much stuff in as you, maybe mine is what you get with just a little bit of organics. Ah well, I'll stop worrying about it.



> Perhaps gremlins -


Aha! wet brick! makes sense.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Guess it's time for my weekly update. I haven't been obsessively counting days since it was confirmed that the cycle was actually progressing, which has been nice. But, today is now 3 full weeks since I first saw nitrites. So, I expect/hope that any day now nitrites should drop back down to zero. I've been dosing 4-6ppm ammonia about every other day. On friday I tested KH again and it was back down to about 6.5 drops, so when I topped off yesterday I added another tbsp of baking soda. Still seeing the suds, and it took a while but another thin protein film formed on the pump side which I skimmed off prior to topping off.

Much of last weekend was spent preparing for a garage sale that will be this weekend. That actually helps me because it cleared a bunch of stuff out of the (fish room) storage room where I need to frame the wall and do the plumbing, even though it's taking up the time I need to get it done. Then the weekend after that is memorial day weekend and well be out of town again. I'm going to have to find some time during week days to get it done I think.

Been trying to plan a visit down to visit my brother in Columbus but we've been holding off until the tank is ready because he's going to give me a couple bristlenose plecos from his tank where they won't stop breeding. Looks like June 5/6 weekend is the earliest that can happen now, so hopefully the filter finishes cycling and I can get everything else done by then to start getting fish in that weekend and/or early the following week. :fish: :fish:

Finally remembered to order some new bulkhead gaskets. I went with lifeguard aquatics gaskets, they're smooth and one side, and the other side has 2 concentric raised rings surrounding the hole. I'm assuming the smooth side goes against the glass and the side with the raised rings goes against the plastic bulkhead. I'm thinking that way because I think I remember reading about how the rubber is supposed to somewhat bond with the glass when installed clean and dry to make a semipermanent seal and the raised rings should make a better contacting seal with the plastic where the bonding doesn't happen. But if anyone can confirm that or tell me why it should be the other way I'd appreciate it.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Do we have to wait for Tuesday for the weekly update? How did the sale go?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

haha I guess so. I don't really have much of an update now though. The sale went well. Mrs. Rhinox said we sold over $400 of junk we weren't using anymore.

I still have a sump full of nitrites. now it's been 4 weeks. So that makes it 10 weeks total since starting to cycle. Been wondering recently, if maybe there are different strains of the beneficial bacteria and the ones in my area or that found their way into my tank are just a slower growing strain? Considering adding some bottle product to introduce some alternate strains. I'm not sure I trust the ones I have now to adjust quickly enough if anything ever happens to disrupt them and cause an ammonia spike.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

weekly update time... and it's a good update. after 11 weeks (6 for the ammonia half and 5 for the nitrite half) I tested this morning and observed 0 nitrites! So it appears I have finally established a cycle!

Now to stop dragging my feet on the rest of the work and get this tank running


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Congratulations!


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Congrats and :dancing:


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

thanks!

yesterday I added somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8ppm ammonia and tested a couple hours ago and measured 0 on both ammonia and nitrite. 6-8ppm in the sump would be 1-2ppm in the full system volume so looking pretty good. Just got to keep feeding my hard grown bacteria now until I get set up.


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## JimSparks (Apr 7, 2020)

That's exciting!! What's next?


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Sorry, Jim. We have to wait for Tuesdays.


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## JimSparks (Apr 7, 2020)

It's Tuesday :-D


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Hey Jim, This is just my normal Monday post to remind you that we have to wait for Tuesdays now...

RHINOX! We need an update!


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

sorry for leaving you hanging! I figured no update might be better than a disappointing one. Nothing new has happened as far as getting the tank set up and getting fish the past 2 weeks. I'm stuck right now until I get my water supply and drain plumbed in. And before that, I need to frame up the wall I intend to put the utility sink on. That would be a nice weekend job but I dragged my feet so long that now that the weather is being nice my wife expects me to go do outside things with the family on weekends  . And I'm falling behind on some projects for work so haven't really been able to slip downstairs and work in the basement over my lunchbreaks like I had when work was slower. I have to drop my oldest off at summer camp in the mornings now instead of just getting him on the bus, so that takes an extra half hour out of my days, plus 3 days a week I have to stop work kinda early. My oldest is doing skating lessons and hockey practice 2 days a week, and they're both doing swimming lessons a 3rd, so I don't have the extra time to stretch out my hours unless I work at night after the kids are in bed (by then I'm usually just ready for a drink! haha)

On a sad note, an aunt I was very close with passed away on June 7th after a 12 year fight with pancreatic cancer. That pushed the fish tank so far to the back of my mind that by the end of last week I realized I had let the filter go a week without feeding ammonia. This past weekend was family time and now here we are already to tuesday in mid june. I did go down, skim out some surface film, top off, and dose with ammonia this morning. I'll do some water tests tomorrow morning to make sure my neglect didn't upset my cycle. This week is my oldest's 6th birthday and Friday-Sunday will be spent on Birthday celebrating activities as well as father's day. Monday is my 12th wedding anniversary. The following weekend is my aunt's funeral and my mom's 60th birthday, and my brother and sister-in-law are coming up from SC and we get to meet our 2mo nephew for the first time. So this month has really just been a lot already. Weekend after that is the 4th already so I'm quickly realizing it could be mid-july before tank status changes, unless I get time to get down and work during the week. No one to blame but myself, though. I could and should have had it all done by the time the cycle finished. Ah well, it'll get done. There'll still be fish to buy in July.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Mid-July is not so far away. All that family stuff sounds important and you will be glad you made/will make the memories. Balance is good.

Sorry for your loss.


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## SenorStrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Man, that's heavy. I'm sorry for your loss. I've honestly been at a loss for words over the last few days as to what to say, but, lest ye feel abandoned in my silence, You are truly in my thoughts and prayers. It's always more important to do the family stuff for sure. Good luck, and let us know how everything goes.


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## JimSparks (Apr 7, 2020)

Sorry for your loss.

I feel ya. That window to work on "our" stuff is very small and only remains open for a short time.  Most of what I have been doing is happening from 9 pm to 11 pm at night. Of course, at that time, anything that makes noise would be off-limits.

Anyway, enjoy the family time. As you say, there will still be fish to buy in July. And August even. If you need to. 8)


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