# How long to cycle with zero KH ?



## andy335touring (Mar 14, 2012)

I've seeded this tank with a squeeze of some mature media but i'm guessing as it's such a low kh the bacteria are struggling to reproduce ?

It's been set up 2apx weeks and it's not converting the ammonia yet.

I tried adding bicarb to raise the kh but the akadama must be sucking it up ?

In this tank PH is low 6's, GH4 and 27C.

The first shrimp tank with FSS cycled in 1-2 weeks but the FSS seems to keep the kh at 3 and upper 6's PH.

So is this normal to have it take so long to cycle with these parameters ?


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

It's probably the low pH that is making it take longer to cycle although a seeded filter should have added both bacteria off the start for you. Bacteria take longer to get a hold at a low pH. kH shouldn't matter and the more you dose, the more the soil is going to suck it up and bring it back to zero but when it sucks it up, sooner or later it has to release it so don't bother dosing bicarb anymore. All my active sub tanks are 0kH and never been a problem. 

For my netlea tank which drops the pH to 5.6, it took a few months to get all the ammonia from the soil leeched and it really cycled. My ADA Amazonia tank, took about 3 weeks for the soil to finish leeching. Haven't test nitrites or nitrates yet but it's planted lightly so they are probably sucking up any of those. 

Either way, I don't like adding shrimp to a tank that hasn't been setup for a while anyways to let everything establish itself, make sure you get no spikes of planaria, hydra, other critters you don't want, biofilm to build up, bacteria to establish in the substrate, etc. I just throw in some plants, ramshorns, water, filter or media from another tank and dump some shrimp in a month or two later.


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## andy335touring (Mar 14, 2012)

Thanks for the very quick reply, i thought it was the kh not the ph but now i know and that it's normal to take longer to cycle.

Once it's cycled i'm going to chuck 3 juvie danios in there to keep it ticking over for a month or so until the bio film builds up a bit.

Talking of critters, is there any thing i can use to get rid of some little pest snails that came in on my frogbit, as there's no shrimp or fish in there i might have some more options/solutions to chose from ?

Any thing chemical that will kill them with out it lingering in the tank or a type of fish that eat them ?


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## getochkn (Jul 10, 2011)

There are some loaches that eat snails but not sure on what kind. A lot of chemicals that kill them are high in copper which will kill shrimp and may linger. You can get assassin snails but then when all the snails are gone, you have to feed the assassins blood worms or something and on rare, rare cases, an assassin will attack a freshly molted shrimp. It's rare though.

I just leave snails in. They do a good job of eating dying leaves on plants and excess food that the shrimp don't eat. If you only feed every few days for the shrimp, the snails won't get that out of control. You can even crush a snail now and again for the shrimp to eat but don't do that often, shrimp don't need a lot of protein, mostly veggie matter.


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## andy335touring (Mar 14, 2012)

I was worried they might take some of the shrimps bio film but i'll leave them alone, i've not long put two assassin snails in my other shrimp tank but it's too soon for me to see how they get on. 

Thanks for all the info


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

My akadama tank was cycled in less than 4 weeks, while the netlea tank is still in the process, and it's been 7 weeks 

I know some people add shrimps in new akadama tanks less than a week old (with matured filter) and no issue at all, not sure about breeding but at least no shrimp death (I understand these are two different things). 

So, did you add any source of ammonia in your akadama tank? If you don't have enough ammonia source then it will take forever since there's no food for AOB. I chose the raw shrimp method that get NH3 to 1~2 ppm and NH3 started to turn into NO2 in a few days, it's the NOB (NO2 to NO3) that took a bit longer to catch up for me. 

You can find pure ammonia for cheap (for cleaning purpose) but make sure you don't get the kind with soap. Shake the bottle if there's bubble then it's no good. You only need a little (like a few ml) to get to 3 to 4ppm, don't go over 5ppm but I think 3 to 4 should be good.

It was so much faster in the eco-complete tank with PH8 though, I had the three tanks set up around the same time. Eco-complete tank was the first to be ready, although there's still no shrimp in there but the apple snails I put in there just laid eggs yesterday ;-)

Be patient with new tanks, it's worth it.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

If anybody wants some ammonia, I have a huge bottle of it now.. I'd gladly give some away !


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## andy335touring (Mar 14, 2012)

Thanks for sharing your experiences(sp?).

I've got some pure ammonia which i'm using.

I think i'm going to seed this tank again, it might not help speed things along but it won't hurt to try.



randy said:


> My akadama tank was cycled in less than 4 weeks, while the netlea tank is still in the process, and it's been 7 weeks
> 
> I know some people add shrimps in new akadama tanks less than a week old (with matured filter) and no issue at all, not sure about breeding but at least no shrimp death (I understand these are two different things).
> 
> ...


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Just fyi, you did spell experiences correctly !


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## andy335touring (Mar 14, 2012)

Fishfur said:


> Just fyi, you did spell experiences correctly !


TY, my spelling isn't the best.


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