I have had some water problems for about the last month. A brief overview: no kh in my tapwater made the ph drop like a rock to 6.0 or less in my tank (29 gallon), which killed some of my nitrifying bacteria and the ammonia went up to 2.0.

I thought after the ammonia went back to 0, I was out of the woods. Nope. The tank had to cycle again. I found this out because one of the platys died unfortunately. Did a water test and the nitrites were at 5.0! Put some Cycle and Amquel+ in and hoped for the best. The next day I did another water test. The nitrites went down to 0.5. Now that is a killer combo if you ask me.

what you need to remember is you can quite easily get a spike this happens quite often which is one of the reasons that i prefer a fishless cycle the other one you need to look out for is that the tank dont go in to mini cycles just keep testing you water stats and act accordingly

Funny thing is, the L183s don't seem bothered by the high ammonia or the high nitrite. They are doing the best out of the other fish.

its quite possible that if they have been in the tank since the problem started then they will have gradually got used to the conditions where as if you had introduced them into them conditions then i would say it would probly end in tradgedy so its a good thing that you are addressing the problem

The mini cycles, is that a series of build ups, and then a crash, going back into the build up again?

Clunkster, when you say you prefer the 'fishless' cycle, because of the spike, you're saying, 'well, the spike's going to happen anyway, I don't want my fish in there when it does.' That's correct?

not sure, as that is something i have never tried,in fact to be honest not even thought about it before, but you would still need to get a spike otherwise how would you get all the friendly and benificial bacteria ? remember that is why you cycle the tank where as changing the water every 2/3 days would in my oppinion slow down the cycle if not stop it taking place at all, i could be wrong but if someone wants to try it and let us know

I guess it comes down to the growth rate of the bacteria population. I agree that it would certainly slow the overall cycle.

I was heading in this direction in that other thread (forgot which one - fishless cycle?). Should it be the normal thing, to have 40 days of 'dangerous water', and then begin normal living, and then begin regular water changes.

Why not begin a hih frequency of water changes (with fish), in the first week, and then ease back once the critical period has lapsed.

I've sat, and looked at the 'Cycle Chart' wondering how those spikes would alter. I guess there's only one way to know for sure. But you'd need two tanks to do it right.

ther is only the one way to find out but as you say you would need 2 tanks of the same size ..............M.T.S

2 being setup this week on the rack planned for fishless cycling, so we want to see what happens in one that has water changes during cycling and one that doesn't if i'm not mistaken?

yes please monkeh if you dont mind running an experiment with 2 of your tanks it would be interesting to know the results

Realising, you need to conduct tests every other day. It'll burn though your test kits.

I'll pitch some money in for the test kits to find out.