wait for nitrite spike to confirm minicycle?

[HelplessNewbie]

My 20g had a cycle crash after 3 months of being cycled. I ended up removing all animals to qt while my water parameters stabilize and bacteria bloom clears.

Should I wait on a nitrite spike to confirm my cycling is happening properly? It has been 2 weeks, and nitrite remains zero, nitrate, too. Should I ghost feed or add ammonia?

Edited November 1, 2023 by HelplessNewbie
added link to details on cycle crash

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/31/2023 at 7:15 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

My 20g had a cycle crash after 3 months of being cycled. I ended up removing all animals to qt while my water parameters stabilize and bacteria bloom clears.

Should I wait on a nitrite spike to confirm my cycling is happening properly? It has been 2 weeks, and nitrite remains zero, nitrate, too. Should I ghost feed or add ammonia?

Interesting, can you explain a little bit about what happened?  There's usually a few things that go into parameter issues and it's often termed a "cycle crash," but I get the sense that sometimes it can be explained by a few things going on.

Essentially, root cause analysis, what caused ammonia to spike? Did it get fixed? Is it safe for fish now?  Those are the types of questions I would ask myself.  If I had a tank with ammonia spiking on me, my first move would often be to do a water change, add air, and verify all equipment is working the way it should be.  Sometimes a pump gets clogged, sometimes the filter isn't setup right, sometimes the bioload increased, overfeeding, or the plants die back and you lose balance of the plants helping counter the bioload.

I would imagine that sometimes when you're testing you'll almost never see the ammonia spike, but you'll see the nitrite spike as a result. 

If the tank is "fixed" and all the parameters seem good to go, I would slowly add fish back and monitor it.  Add 1/4 the fish at first or something like that.  One school.  then go from where. I don't think you need to ghost feed as much as you would just need to take it slow to ramp things back up to a full tank again.

[Galabar]

You didn't mention anything about ammonia readings.

 

[HelplessNewbie]

On 10/31/2023 at 11:54 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Interesting, can you explain a little bit about what happened? 

Yes, I edited the original post with link to the detailed post: link.

From what I could gather, there was a combination: some plants and shrimp (1 amano and 3 cherries) died off and maybe overfeeding(?), causing alkaline buffer exhaustion and inevitable ph drop(?); and change in my tap water chemistry that was making my dechlorinator ineffective somehow and baking soda (was trying to counter ph drop) to create free chlorine (city water works dept says nothing changed, but with weather getting colder, have been using the water heater more).

Many water changes and buffering and ph additions to "fix", including with bottled ro water.

On 11/1/2023 at 6:39 AM, Galabar said:

You didn't mention anything about ammonia readings.

Essentially, ammonia is reading this week at ..5 to 1 ppm. Ammonia and nitrite never spiked. Just bacterial bloom and fish gasping.

On 10/31/2023 at 11:54 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

If the tank is "fixed" and all the parameters seem good to go, I would slowly add fish back and monitor it.

Should I return them to qt if they start to look ill or there is an ammonia or nitrite spike? My tiny fish are so hard to catch, since it is moderately planted.

Edited November 1, 2023 by HelplessNewbie

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/1/2023 at 4:02 AM, HelplessNewbie said:

Essentially, ammonia is reading this week at ..5 to 1 ppm. Ammonia and nitrite never spiked. Just bacterial bloom and fish gasping.

Ammonia that high is definitely a concern. Let's take a good look at filtration and adjust accordingly before moving fish into that.

On 11/1/2023 at 4:02 AM, HelplessNewbie said:

Should I return them to qt if they start to look ill or there is an ammonia or nitrite spike? My tiny fish are so hard to catch, since it is moderately planted.

The parameters will cause stress and stress can cause diseases to pop up. Having a wide net helps to catch fish, but I understand the concern there.

Before you add fish, let's make sure the setup is ok. When you do add fish the goal is to have things be stable. If you have to start treating for diseases and stuff, that diff hamper that stability and cause further issues.  So to your question, if you see issues, my focus would be water changes. You can do daily water changes to counter a lot of issues if you really need to.

On 11/1/2023 at 4:02 AM, HelplessNewbie said:

Change in my tap water chemistry that was making my dechlorinator ineffective somehow and baking soda (was trying to counter ph drop)

Hm. It was discussed recently that buffers used might not be permanent. Compounding your issue of trying to get the KH/PH where you want it might just be that the baking soda wears off and then you end up with the PH really crashing as the KH disappears. I use seachem alkalinity buffer and I have used crushed coral as well. If crushed coral is an option for you, then it should give you good stability long term.

What is your KH? Maybe it's worth it to get a liquid GH/KH kit?

[HelplessNewbie]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:32 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

If crushed coral is an option for you, then it should give you good stability long term.

I added even more crushed coral to the substrate, but only in the rear 1/4. I have a sponge filter modded with nylon pot scrubbers above it, and a jar diy mini pump filter filled with the same scrubbers. Also have a hob and additional pot scrubber-airstone filter that I added since the bacterial bloom.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 1:32 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

What is your KH? Maybe it's worth it to get a liquid GH/KH kit?

KH is 40ppm right now. PH is 6.6. Will test with API master test kit tomorrow, as I don't have stamina due to my chronic illness

Thank you for attempting to help me.

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/1/2023 at 2:17 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

KH is 40ppm right now. PH is 6.6. Will test with API master test kit tomorrow, as I don't have stamina due to my chronic illness

Thank you for attempting to help me.

Very happy to help. 🙂   KH for me at minimum is 60 ppm for things to stay stable.  I try to get it closer to 70-80, but as long as it's upwards of 60, things seem ok and PH stays where it needs to.  When it comes to the adjustment, adding the CC is a good choice and I would literally just monitor the KH after a week, adjust accordingly.  If KH is too high, just change water. If KH is too low, add a little more.

 

On 11/1/2023 at 2:17 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

I added even more crushed coral to the substrate, but only in the rear 1/4. I have a sponge filter modded with nylon pot scrubbers above it, and a jar diy mini pump filter filled with the same scrubbers. Also have a hob and additional pot scrubber-airstone filter that I added since the bacterial bloom.

The easiest way to give you some stability might be to just get some lava rocks.  You can basically run the tank off sponge filters and the rocks will act as your biological media.  You could then remove the pot scrubbers if you wanted to.  They do sell the lava rocks pretty cheap at a few places, but there is a little bit of work you might need help with before you add them to the tank.  Basically, they are very sharp, so rubbing them on the ground (or rock against another rock) will break those sharp edges.  It's not mandatory, but it is helpful for things where you have your hands near and fish will be around it.  You can also do the same thing with pumice and I wouldn't think it would float.  Probably grow some algae, but same concept.

The reason I mention it, I do believe the lack of robust biological media could be giving you the fits with water parameters (nitrite spikes).

[HelplessNewbie]

Latest test strip this evening finally showed a tiny bit of pink for nitrite. My daughter reads it at 0.1 ppm.

I guess I will wait and observe.