Cycling Troubles?

[Zac]

Hey all,

So I’m having trouble determining if my tank is having trouble cycling or not. It’s been up for almost 4 weeks. I used to have a pretty big mulm problem because some of my plants were dying and rotting. So I removed them, did some water changes, and it’s significantly better now (roughly a week to so later). However I still have mulm, but only a little. I know it’s beneficial when there’s enough bacteria to break it down.

My tank has had around a .5ppm nitrite level for quite a while now which I know is normal for a cycling tank and I’m really trying not to over maintenance it (especially because I have no fish). All I have are “pest” snails. I’ve noticed quite a few have died but they usually get eaten by the other snails and only the shell remains. I think it’s either due to nitrites or no food because I’m not feeding them.

I’m not in a huge rush to get this thing cycled but I’m starting to get hair algae so I’d like to get some amano shrimp in there before it takes over. All the plants look healthy from what I can see. The octopus plant has lost a couple of the lower leaves recently but it looks healthy over all.

 

-I’ve attacked some pics of my tank and the mulm. Is this a normal amount to have or is it too much? Also if y’all see anything wrong with the plants let me know plz. I dose 3mL easy green every 3 days, 2mL of easy iron the days after I dose easy green, and seachem root tabs once every couple months. The lights on 80% brightness for 8ish hours, but the right side of the tank gets a lot of natural light before it turns on.

[Fish Folk]

Have you tried adding FritzZyme 7?

[Zac]

On 6/5/2022 at 3:41 PM, Fish Folk said:

Have you tried adding FritzZyme 7?

Not yet but I was debating on picking some up. Should I add the recommended dosage for a new tank or should I cut it down a bit because it’s partly established?

On 6/5/2022 at 3:42 PM, Pepere said:

I had hair Algae forming too as I was cycling my tank.

Backing off some on the Easy Iron eliminated it

How much were you adding?

[Fish Folk]

@Zac I’d dose it full as recommended for a new tank. Make sure there’s enough air in there too.

[Zac]

On 6/5/2022 at 3:48 PM, Fish Folk said:

@Zac I’d dose it full as recommended for a new tank. Make sure there’s enough air in there too.

I’m running 2 medium sponge filters with nano pumps and ziss air stones in them. That should be enough right?

On 6/5/2022 at 3:48 PM, Pepere said:

Cory mentioned in a video that asign of using too much iron can be hair algae.

 

I dropped back to 2 pumps in 29 gallon tank every 5 days.

I can definitely try that. I’m doing 2 pumps twice a week so I’ll try dropping it around there 

[Fish Folk]

@Zac that’s great. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/5/2022 at 12:25 PM, Zac said:

My tank has had around a .5ppm nitrite level for quite a while now which I know is normal for a cycling tank and I’m really trying not to over maintenance it (especially because I have no fish). All I have are “pest” snails. I’ve noticed quite a few have died but they usually get eaten by the other snails and only the shell remains. I think it’s either due to nitrites or no food because I’m not feeding them.

I think you're basically "almost there" and all you need to do is actually introduce food.  I had the benefit of cycled media, fed the tank empty for 1-2 weeks and let the filters process the waste until I saw nitrates. One of the things to do when you're cycling is that whatever your expected load will be, at least something, is to feed the tank that load.  Corys example, was if you eventually want to feed X cubes of frozen food, you'd slowly build up to feeding that amount of food over time.  Obviously it helps if you have something in there to eat the food and produce more waste instead of letting the food go directly into the filter.  I just use flake food.

Because you have snails, if you feed the tank, you're going to see their population rise a bit. This isn't desired I'm assuming, and you want to over time replace that load with fish so the snail population can balance out.

I agree with feeding bacteria. I think you're 1-3 weeks out on nitrates being processed and a lot of that is going to depend on how much you're feeding.  If you use the bacteria in a bottle, you can edge closer to that 1 week mark.  If you don't, you're likely closer to 2-3 weeks out before I would add fish.  If you wanted to purchase the fish, start the QT process in tubs or something, that would be something to do now as well and the timing might work out nicely.

[Fish Folk]

One off-the-cuff thought: Are you absolutely sure you're looking at molm? I wonder if that might be a sort of diatom algae. Maybe I'm way off, but is that blasting sand substrate? I've had problems with that which far exceeded any molm that reasonably could have built up. Just a thought to consider. 

[Zac]

On 6/5/2022 at 4:52 PM, Fish Folk said:

One off-the-cuff thought: Are you absolutely sure you're looking at molm? I wonder if that might be a sort of diatom algae. Maybe I'm way off, but is that blasting sand substrate? I've had problems with that which far exceeded any molm that reasonably could have built up. Just a thought to consider. 

That’s what I originally thought. I was told by a few people that it was mulm but I also thought it was diatom algae too. I’m using seachem black fluorite sand. Honestly…I’m really not sure. When I removed the rotting plants it seemed to get better. Also I noticed it’s underneath the driftwood. Unless diatom can grow where it’s almost completely dark that I think it’s mulm but now that you mention it I really don’t know lol. I also noticed it reappears almost in the exact spots after I remove it 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Zac

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/5/2022 at 4:26 PM, Zac said:

Also I noticed it’s underneath the driftwood. Unless diatom can grow where it’s almost completely dark that I think it’s mulm but now that you mention it I really don’t know lol. I also noticed it reappears almost in the exact spots after I remove it 

Very likely is just where the flow settles.

I didn't have any issue with the black flourite that you're using.

When you got the wood for the tank, how did you prep it?  Do you see snails on the wood?

[Zac]

On 6/5/2022 at 9:53 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Very likely is just where the flow settles.

I didn't have any issue with the black flourite that you're using.

When you got the wood for the tank, how did you prep it?  Do you see snails on the wood?

I soaked it for about a day, I got it about a month ago, and I see a small amount of snails on the wood sometimes. When there was biofilm on it they were all over it

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/5/2022 at 7:23 PM, Zac said:

I soaked it for about a day, I got it about a month ago, and I see a small amount of snails on the wood sometimes. When there was biofilm on it they were all over it

Interesting. I basically try to hose it off, power wash it as best I can with a hard spray. Then I boil it / soak it as need be.

It's interesting because there may have been some residuals on the surface that didn't get off with only a short soak, especially if the surface wasn't cleaned off and then the snails went to town on it. If you see the color of the mulm as similar to the wood, it's likely from that. If it is the color of the food, could likely be from that. I would expect the snails to be all over the wood.

If it's algae it's going to be black, tan/brown/red, or green/blue-green.