Snail-In Cycle?

I set up a 10 gallon tank before a left town a couple weeks ago. I put some driftwood and hornwort in it. They came from other tanks and had a variety of pest snails. Threw a little food in there and did not give it much thought.

Back now pest snail population growing. Have less than 0.25 ppm ammonia, zero nitrite and zero nitrate. No cycle which makes sense since short time and very little ammonia source. Maybe hornwort is keeping ammonia modest. Or maybe the bio-load is so low that 0.25 ppm is all that accumulated over two weeks.

Today I hit it with 0.125 ppm Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride. I am thinking that small doses of ammonium chloride will not hurt the pest snails. I have pest snails survive a fishless cycle in another tank that survived much higher levels of ammonium chloride.

I am hopeful that the tanks will begin to process ammonia and I will be able to gradually increase ammonium chloride. When it will process say 0.5 ppm per day to zero zero ammonia and nitrites, then put in a pregnant female guppy. The drop of fry will result in a gradually growing ammonia load and the weak 0.5 ppm cycle will grow as the fry mature.

Reasonable?

Any guesses on how long it will take to develop a sufficient cycle?

How are snails affected by low levels of ammonia?

Or alternatively, I could just add the pregnant female guppy now and use fish-in cycle protocols.

 

Check the ammonia toxicity charts against your temp and pH, I'm sure you could go higher than .25 ammonia but I wouldn't bet on any numbers for nitrite if it spikes. The nitrite tox charts aren't quite as well researched and put together.

Momma guppy cycling is a great idea though, or just fry cycling. I would think the theory that the load grows gradually is why I've never poisoned any fry in tubs. That round tank I set up before Christmas as a temporary "pretty" grow out with the sponge ended up being a juggernaut using the "fry cycle" started with one drop and pretty quickly had almost 30 juvies swimming around in there and if I were to exclude the heater incedent (no fish lost) it has run great. I'm actually going to use it as a breeding spot for my second strain after this runs done (I should be on my last drop this month).

 

John58ford Thanks for the reply. In my other tank, some pest snails survived crazy high / off the charts nitrites. Or maybe it was snail eggs that survived and they hatched after the cycle was complete.

 

John58ford I found a temp / PH ammonia toxicity chart in a forum. There was also some related discussion. Consensus was that zero is always best but that 0.25 ppm is not that toxic unless you have very high PH and temp. As much as 1.0 ppm can be okay and lower temp and PH. My tanks are at PH of 8.0 and temp of 78 deg F. For me, I think keeping below 0.25 ppm makes sense.

Based on that, it seems that adding one female guppy in a 10 gallon with a bunch of snails is not likely to get very toxic very fast.

However, I will be out of town from March 10 through 22. I would want to keep an eye out for nitrite spike which seems the more likely parameter I would have to manage with water changes. Therefore, I think I will leave it just snails for now. But I think I will hit it win modest levels of ammonium chloride between now and when I leave town to see if I can get it going a bit.

Then I will re-evaluate when I return to town and consider adding momma guppy then.

 

Sounds about right, my chart shows you would be just hitting the yellow at .5 ppm ammonia, but as you have pointed out, that could yield a not insubstantial amount of nitrite that could call for a water change. Sounds like another fun cycling be project to me .

 

Back in town. Trip cut short due to crazy world.

Wife dosed 0.25 per day while I was gone.

Increasing to 0.5 per day. When it processes that, planning to start adding fish slowly and let the cycle build with the fish.