Am I almost finished? What do you think?

[missmonday]

Hey guys.

I'm im the process of cycling my 20 gallon long tank. It's planted, with black sand, some rocks and a little baggie of crushed coral for kh stability.

I started cycling at the beginning of the month, and I had put in 1ml pf ACE ammonia once a day for three days (total of 3ml) because that's what I had done for cycling my 10 gallon. Well, monitoring the ammonia, it was really high so I stopped dosing. I also had some plant die off, so I felt that contributed to the ammonia too. Plants are looking better, it was just some crypt rot.

Here are current params:
Ammonia 4
Nitrite 2-5
Nitrate 160

The ammonia has been going down but veeeerrryyy slowly. I've got a ton of nitrate so I know things are happening. What should I do?

 

[missmonday]

Also! The tank is 74F and my tap water is 0/0/0

 

[libertybelle]

woah.... those readings are super high. What else is in that tank? Anything that could be rotting in a corner, old gunky substrate...? With readings that high your cycle may be stalled because of bad water quality. Bacteria can only take so much too!

If it were me I would do major water changes to bring everything WAY down. Then you can dose ammonia again and see how quickly things move through the cycle.

 

[Delapool]

Would water change as well to bring down nitrates and check ph is ok.


1 ppm ammonia -> 2.7 ppm nitrite -> 3.6 ppm nitrate.

 

[Mebbid]

I would also crank the temperature up to at least 80 degrees. the BB grows much faster at warmer temperatures.

 

[jessipanda]

+1 to all the above. Large water change, raise temp, redose ammonia

 

[crtc_01]

I just finished cycling a 55gallon. It took 31days total with used filter media. It took 11days for the ammonia to fall. I dosed again and it would fall but my nitrites were off the charts. Between days 11 and 17 I did 3 big water changes to bring the nitrites down and after the 17day mark I stopped adding ammonia. On day 18 I had 0 ammonia, nitrites off the charts and nitrates around 40ppm. By day 21 my nitrites fell to .50ppm and I dosed ammonia to 3ppm. I would wait for to ammonia to fall and then a few days later the nitrites would come down. I repeated this process until I could convert 4ppm ammonia to 0 in 30hrs and the nitrites in 64hrs. I also had the temp at 82deg and ran two air stones.

 

[missmonday]

okay! So I did a 50% pwc and bumped up the temperature, right now it's 78F but the heater is still on so it might rise a little. I was a little generous with the prime, so my readings are now ammonia .5/nitrite 2.0/nitrate 20-40. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure HOW the nitrate fell so much??? It was ridiculously dark red when I tested the other day and now it's a reddish orange.

I'll go redose the ammonia. Oh, I also seem to have copepods somehow. I only noticed them when the filter was off. They'd be a good live food source, yeah?? Nothing to worry about?

I started with completely fresh substrate. Some other details about the tank: api laterite capped with petco black sand, 3 smooth river rocks, 2 larger but unreactive rocks, 1 piece driftwood (never changed the water's color). Medium planted. Using a c2 filter. I cleaned a lot of gunk off of the filer so maybe it was just a nitrate factory and that's why my numbers lowered a lot???

I've got an assortment of bladder/pond snails but there was never any livestock in the tank.

 

[libertybelle]

okay! So I did a 50% pwc and bumped up the temperature, right now it's 78F but the heater is still on so it might rise a little. I was a little generous with the prime, so my readings are now ammonia .5/nitrite 2.0/nitrate 20-40. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure HOW the nitrate fell so much??? It was ridiculously dark red when I tested the other day and now it's a reddish orange.

I'll go redose the ammonia. Oh, I also seem to have copepods somehow. I only noticed them when the filter was off. They'd be a good live food source, yeah?? Nothing to worry about?

I started with completely fresh substrate. Some other details about the tank: api laterite capped with petco black sand, 3 smooth river rocks, 2 larger but unreactive rocks, 1 piece driftwood (never changed the water's color). Medium planted. Using a c2 filter. I cleaned a lot of gunk off of the filer so maybe it was just a nitrate factory and that's why my numbers lowered a lot???

I've got an assortment of bladder/pond snails but there was never any livestock in the tank.

Nitrate tests can be tough... make sure you shake the bottle really really well or you won't get an accurate reading.

Copepods are fine, like you said, could be a good food source when you add fish. It's common to see them in predator free tanks with a source of food.

 

[missmonday]

Update: it hasn't been 24hrs since I added the 5ml of ammonia, but here's the results of my test anyway. It doesn't look like the ammonia is going down very fast. Any advice? Temp is 78F still.

Ammonia 4
Nitrite 2
Nitrate 80 (guess I didn't shake the bottle hard enough last test!)

The hitchhiker snails in there are multiplying like crazy :'D i obviously haven't put any food in there, but the dead plant material must be a feast.

 

[libertybelle]

Update: it hasn't been 24hrs since I added the 5ml of ammonia, but here's the results of my test anyway. It doesn't look like the ammonia is going down very fast. Any advice? Temp is 78F still.

Ammonia 4
Nitrite 2
Nitrate 80 (guess I didn't shake the bottle hard enough last test!)

The hitchhiker snails in there are multiplying like crazy :'D i obviously haven't put any food in there, but the dead plant material must be a feast.

If the snails are multiplying they're getting food somewhere. Possibly the dying plants, those will also contribute to the ammonia.

You're going to have to be patient. It takes time for this process to happen.

 

[missmonday]

So after dosing the 5ml of ammonia the calculator said to, my 4.0 ppm hasn't budged! Nitrite are between 2 and 5, with nitrates between 80 and 160.

I'm hoping that I can just cut a little sliver off of sponge foam from one of my other tanks and stick it in the filter for this tank. I would have put the c2 in my larger tank to collect some bb, but there wasn't any room without messing with the versa top.

My 10g cycled in a little under two weeks :') kinda frustrating how the ammonia won't go down, but the cycle is happening, evident from my crazy high nitrates.

Should I do another pwc to bring down the nitrates?

 

[jessipanda]

I would. Sounds like your cycle is stalled. What does the filter media look like? I'd do an 80-90% wc and if the filters are real dirty (unlikely without fish waste and food, but i guess possible) squeeze them a bit in the old tank water. That'll bring the nitrates down to an acceptable level and you can try dosing the ammonia again.

It does take awhile to cycle, but that's such a high amount of nitrates...

 

[Ff_emt2008]

I whould agree with doing a big wc. I have never cycle a tank using ammonia and they have always cycled in 3 to 4 weeks so i really do think its stalled. I think the break down of the plants are not helping and after a wc i wouldnt add ammonia cause of the plants my help you at the point. I think adding ammonia is just hurting at this point. But do rinse the filter pads in ur old tank water. Is there anything else other then ammonia that ur adding to the water?

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[missmonday]

I cycled my 10g quarantine using the exact same ammonia, so I know it's not the source. It's the janitorial ACE ammonia, no surfactants, etc. It's the good stuff! I've also added a little bit of aeachem flourish and excel, but I've only added the flourish a few times (just once a week, 2ml) and the excel every few days. It's only liquid co2 but I haven't been adding that much so I don't think it'd affect the cycle THAT much...?

I'll check on my pH level, I haven't done that. There's no kh buffer in my local water so I always put a little baggie of crushed coral in all my tanks, but right out of the tap it's 7.0.

I'm going to leave the plants as they are because I'm liking the look of the tank and they're growing pretty well. Other than the ferts though, I only added tetra safestart, when I first started cycling.

I have a fluval c2 filter, it's got a c-node chamber, a polyfoam section, and a section for charcoal but I don't have any charcoal in there now. I do have some charcoal/ammonia removal mix. Should I add that in?

 

[Ff_emt2008]

What are ur levels now. Also have u done a wc today

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[Ff_emt2008]

Sorry just realized ur post was only 3 hrs old. I would let it go a day and see what happens to ur levels. Still do a wc to help drop ur nitrates. U must have some bb so that sould help drop ur ammonia.

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[missmonday]

Okay so, on the 26th I did a 70 to 75% pwc. I also rinsed off the filter pad, and added an ammonia-reducer/charcoal pack. There was previously nothing in the section of the c2 filter. The filter has 3 main sections, sponge/foam, ceramic nodes and charcoal.

It definitely seems to have done it's job! Ammonia now at .25, Nitrite 2.0, Nitrate at 40
I haven't redosed ammonia yet, however I still have a little bit of plant decay and there are pond/bladder snails slightly assissting so there is a bit of ammonia creation. I was dumb and forgot to test my ph though!

Still getting nitrates so that's a good sign, anything to be done about the high nitrite, or just wait it out?

 

[Ff_emt2008]

Those numbers aren't bad just let it work its self now i wouldn't add any more ammonia

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[missmonday]

I'm not quite sure what even happened, but I'll dose 1ml of ammonia today so my cycle doesn't die off. I haven't done another PWC since the 26th.

But today I did a comprehensive water test. Note: there is an ammonia removal/charcoal pack in my filter. There is also driftwood but it never leached any noticeable tanins. I also have rocks in there, but they seem nonreactive.

I also shake all of my solution bottles for 30 seconds before dropping, both nitrate bottles get shaken for 60 seconds!

Ammonia .25
Nitrite .25
Nitrate 5.0
PH 6.0
KH 0-3° (only needed one drop)
GH 3-6° (needed three drops)

My low pH concerns me and was definitely the reason why my cycle was stalling! I also don't know HOW all my levels dropped off!! I'm hoping that redosing will keep things going at least a bit.

I have some seachem equilibrium (I think it's called). It's a salt to adjust my pH to 7.0 or thereabouts. I still have some crushed coral leftover, should I add some directly into my filter? I already have some underneath the filter intake in a stocking...

What a crazy cycle haha.