I dont know

[Azure Lord]

Im pretty close to giving up. 5 weeks into the cycle, and i have not seen a single drop in ammonia. Ive done everything im supposed to, added dr tims one and only 4 days ago......still nothing.

I have no clue what to do

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[MICEY]

buy a few cheap fish and do it the natural way , I never did a fishless in 50 years
most I did was add some gravel for filter material from a going tank
the bacteria will grow even if you add none its in the air
they just need food (fish poop), air, the filter supplies that and somewhere to grow , the filter , gravel, plants tank sides , adding a few snails will speed thing up
check out fresh water aquariums for dummies , the writer likes doing as little as needed
lots of water changes but little or no ph changes , and little or no chemicals unless you have a known problem that can't be fixed any other way

 

[catface]

Does your LFS sell pre colonised media? I'd be going down this route rather than needlessly killing fish.
What temp are you running the tank at? The bacteria grow much quicker in temps around 30°c.

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[Azure Lord]

I dont have any fish yet. And my heater stsys around 76*. Its not adjustable.

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[catface]

Your tank is only running at 24°c. No wonder it's slow. I would buy another wand heater and bring the temp up to 28-30°c.

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[dalto]

76F should not be a huge inhibitor to the cycle, what is your ph?

 

[catface]

From Eco23's cycling guide- " Crank your heater up and get the water temperature between 77-86 degrees. This is the range that the beneficial bacteria colonize the fastest"

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[dalto]

From Eco23's cycling guide- " Crank your heater up and get the water temperature between 77-86 degrees. This is the range that the beneficial bacteria colonize the fastest"

Yes, but is not like it drops off a cliff below that. He is 1 degree below the optimal range from that article. Not worth buying more heaters over. I have cycled many tanks in the lower 70's without unreasonably long times.

 

[catface]

Fair enough. I'm a newbie too. Just going on the vast swathes of information I've consumed since taking up this hobby!

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[Azure Lord]

I feel like a dipshit.
What to check my ammonia levels and got distracted so the tube set there for a good hour. The test shows 8 ppm as kind of a forest green....... It was navy blue! Did a 80 pwc.....

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[Luv4dan]

My heater isn't adjustable and it stays at 76 degrees and I cycled in about 6 weeks. If you do have 8ppm of ammonia that is a lot and it might've stalled the cycle so it's good you did a water change.


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[Azure Lord]

No...im sayin my ammo was higher than 8ppm.....

Prolly much higher

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[JohnRoscoe]

The pair of rasboras I cycled my tank with are the hardiest fish in my tank 3 years later. I'd go the store this weekend and buy a pair of hardy fish, and a plant or two if you haven't already.

Put me in the school of keeping things simple.


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[dragon14]

We use an Aqueon pro heater. We have a 100 watt for our 10 gallon and a 50watt for our two gallon. They're great. They're adjustable. The only word of warning is that they aren't always true to the temp you set them at, you need to keep an eye on the thermometer for a little while when you first use it, and also if you want to adjust it at all. And by a little while, I mean about a half hour to forty-five minutes is fine. After that though, they are great and steady! We love ours!
In the tank we are cycling, we are keeping it at about 80-82 degrees. Our 2gallon with our little betta is around 76-78 degrees.

Is this your first cycle?

We are currently on day 11 of our first cycle, and our ammonia is 0 for the last 3-4 days. Nitrites are still really high, and nitrates low. We stopped dosing ammonia because I'd read that that can keep the nitrite eating bacteria from growing. I am going to give it a tiny squirt of ammonia and a little bit of fish food tonight though, just so those bacteria don't starve

 

[catface]

Where did you read that about nitrites, Dragon? The opposite is true if you go by this guide. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

You need to keep dosing to 4ppm until ammonia and nitrites are 0 in 24 hours. Presumably this grows the bacteria to a level which can handle the bio-load of a fully stocked tank.

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[Caliban07]

There are so many things that can cause a cycle to go slowly.

The few papers I've read regarding cycling inhibitors are pretty scarce and some come to the conclusion that high levels of X can inhibit the growth of Y but in every case these were talking of amounts waaay beyond what we would see in a home aquarium. We are talking treatment plants etc.

So the most common cause of cycling stalls is ph crash. If the ph is too low (<6.5) then the cycle will slow to a stall. A simple water change will solve this problem as well as removing the ammonia/nitrite that is party causing the ph.

You should always do weekly water changes as you would normally do when carrying out a fishless cycle.

The bacteria are constantly using up the protective buffer (kh) in the water to nitrify ammonia and nitrite as well as creating acids. Ph will fall if you don't replace the protective buffers with a water change. Approximately 7.4ppm kh is used to convert 1ppm ammonia ----> nitrate.

Other causes of stalls or a slow cycle is the never ending climbing of nitrite due to the high volumes of ammonia. It will take a very long time see a drop in nitrites without a water change.

My advice would be to dose 4ppm ammonia and leave the system until ammonia drops to 0ppm then re-dose to 4ppm and monitor the nitrites. Once nitrites rise wait till they come down and don't add any ammonia. When nitrite comes down and nitrates go up do a water change and repeat the process until all happens in 24hrs.

Don't be afraid to change water during a fishless cycle.

Now you have changed water you will probably find the cycle starts again.

Bottled bacteria is useless.


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[Rivers2k]

buy a few cheap fish and do it the natural way , I never did a fishless in 50 years
most I did was add some gravel for filter material from a going tank
the bacteria will grow even if you add none its in the air
they just need food (fish poop), air, the filter supplies that and somewhere to grow , the filter , gravel, plants tank sides , adding a few snails will speed thing up
check out fresh water aquariums for dummies , the writer likes doing as little as needed
lots of water changes but little or no ph changes , and little or no chemicals unless you have a known problem that can't be fixed any other way

Agreed 10000%

 

[dragon14]

Where did you read that about nitrites, Dragon? The opposite is true if you go by this guide. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

You need to keep dosing to 4ppm until ammonia and nitrites are 0 in 24 hours. Presumably this grows the bacteria to a level which can handle the bio-load of a fully stocked tank.

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I don't have anything saved, but, I came across it when doing some searching. I guess that that is incorrect.

Anyway, we had 0 ammonia, sky high nitrites. I didn't check for 3 days. Today 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, around 80 nitrates... so we are nearly done! I am so excited! I dosed it up to 4ppm and will see how everything is tomorrow... so close to being done. It's only been 15 days in our 10 gallon

I have mostly been following that guide. It is amazing! I saved the text into a word document as well on my computer so I can read it even when offline.

 

[catface]

I've since been told that it's OK to dose to 1ppm ammonia to let the nitrite eating bacteria catch up. You obviously did something right!

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[dragon14]

I think I saw something about that

It is all cycled now & our little betta is very happy back in his 10g tank! We can't wait to get some pygmy cory cat fish.