Fishless Cycling with Amazonia Substrate : Need Help

[Shrimpie123]

Hi everyone,

 

Almost two weeks ago I started to fishless cycle my 3G JBJ Picotope. I'm only six months in to shrimping and I LOVE IT! So this is my first active substrate tank. 

 

JBJ Picotope

AC 30 (seeded with established fish/shrimp tank media, purigen, activated charcoal)

Amazonia Substrate

Gold/Silver MK Breed under substrate when I initially set up the tank

Glas Garten Betaglucan midsubstrate

 

Plants:

Fissidens

Christmas Moss

Buce

 

Cholla Wood x 3 pieces

 

Indian Almond Leaf

 

Parameters:

PH 6.56 (per PH Pen)

TDS : 127 

GH 4

Ammonia 4 (yikes!)

Nitrite 0 

Nitrate 0

 

So here's what happened. I was gone 5 days and returned today to string algae on my Christmas moss ledge. I forgot to turn the tank light off. I did a 90% water change, threw out the moss and clipped fresh moss from my other tank and re-dressed the ledge, added RO/DI water, added Lowboys GH mineral balance x4 to adjust GH to 4 which also raised my TDS. 

 

Am I doing something wrong? What should I do? My inert substrate shrimp tank was so easy to cycle but I feel like I am doing something wrong.

 

My goal is to make this a Taiwan Bee tank. 

 

Thanks!

[Shrimple minded]

Everything looks fine, save for the lighting mishap.  I haven't used Amazonia myself but most report seeing ammonia leech for several (3-4+) weeks after initial setup.  

 

Let the cycle complete and you should be well on your way.  

 

I would consider picking up a timer for your lights

[Shrimpie123]

9 hours ago, Shrimple minded said:

Everything looks fine, save for the lighting mishap.  I haven't used Amazonia myself but most report seeing ammonia leech for several (3-4+) weeks after initial setup.  

 

Let the cycle complete and you should be well on your way.  

 

I would consider picking up a timer for your lights

 

Thank you for your help. I have been searching and searching and just couldn't find the information I was looking for. I figured it was time to ask the experts.

[topdeckpro]

ADA Amazonia took 1 month for my 20-40Gs all soil substrates.  The beginning yielded lots of brown and green string algae..do not get discouraged!

[sarah]

Can I ask why you did a water change? You don't have any animals in there, so there is no danger from the ammonia. 4ppm is fine for fishless cycling. You need the ammonia to feed the bacteria to get the cycle going; water changes will just slow it down. If the ammonia spikes higher than 4-5, then you can do a small water change. With an active substrate, you mostly just need to let it do its thing and be patient. Then you'll do a huge water change at the end.

[Shrimpie123]

2 hours ago, sarah said:

Can I ask why you did a water change? You don't have any animals in there, so there is no danger from the ammonia. 4ppm is fine for fishless cycling. You need the ammonia to feed the bacteria to get the cycle going; water changes will just slow it down. If the ammonia spikes higher than 4-5, then you can do a small water change. With an active substrate, you mostly just need to let it do its thing and be patient. Then you'll do a huge water change at the end.

 

I mainly did it to clean the algae off the glass and such. Not so much for the ammonia but for cleaning the algae. 

[Mr. F]

First time I used Amazonia I was having ammonia in the 8 ppm range for a couple weeks then it dropped to 4 with an accompanied spike I nitrate to at least 160. This lasted another 4 weeks! It was crazy. Finally I got ammonia down to 0 and nitrate resting just under 5 when I finally added fish and shrimp. So it took me about 1.5 months!