Need Advice 55 Gallon

[osis62]

I have a 55 gallon tank. It is 5 weeks old. It is going through the cycle. I have two barbs in the tank. My ammonia is sky rocketing. It is 4 ppm. PH is 7.6. Is this normal so late in the cycle. Do i clean my gravel, tank etc. I have a pegiun 350 filter. It is working great. Do i just let nature take its course.

 

[osis62]

need advice 55 gallon tank

I have a 55 gallon tank. fresh water. It has two barbs in it for cycling reasons. It is 5 weeks old. The ammonia is sky rocketing the last few days. It is 4 ppm and the ph is 7.6. Need advice. Is this normal should i let nature take its course. I have read up on the cycle and am waiting for the nitrite to climb and the ammonia to drop. Is this a sign it is going to spike and drop. Should i be cleaning the tank during this? Gravel? Just want the cycle to go by.

 

[osis62]

Advice Please

I have a 55 gallon tank. fresh water. It has two barbs in it for cycling reasons. It is 5 weeks old. The ammonia is sky rocketing the last few days. It is 4 ppm and the ph is 7.6. Need advice. Is this normal should i let nature take its course. I have read up on the cycle and am waiting for the nitrite to climb and the ammonia to drop. Is this a sign it is going to spike and drop. Should i be cleaning the tank during this? Gravel? Just want the cycle to go by. I have a 350 peguin filter and the water is kept at 80 degreess.

 

[DragonFish71]

You should do water changes only to bring the ammonia down to .25 or less so that you're fish don't die. The high ammonia can and will burn their gills


Don't clean the gravel yet, you want the bacteria to build in it. Just lightly skim of the top of the gravel with the gravel vacuum to make sure you don't have too much left over food and waste building up.


Also, when doing water changes, don't use those products that say they have live bacteria in them, and don't use anything like ammo-lock. Just treat the water with a good dechlor.

 

[DragonFish71]

You should do water changes only to bring the ammonia down to .25 or less so that you're fish don't die. The high ammonia can and will burn their gills


Don't clean the gravel yet, you want the bacteria to build in it. Just lightly skim of the top of the gravel with the gravel vacuum to make sure you don't have too much left over food and waste building up.


Also, when doing water changes, don't use those products that say they have live bacteria in them, and don't use anything like ammo-lock. Just treat the water with a good dechlor.

 

[DragonFish71]

You should do water changes only to bring the ammonia down to .25 or less so that you're fish don't die. The high ammonia can and will burn their gills


Don't clean the gravel yet, you want the bacteria to build in it. Just lightly skim of the top of the gravel with the gravel vacuum to make sure you don't have too much left over food and waste building up.


Also, when doing water changes, don't use those products that say they have live bacteria in them, and don't use anything like ammo-lock. Just treat the water with a good dechlor.

 

[jsoong]

Moved to FW - All threads merged. Please in future, don't start multiple threads on the same subject. It gets really messy & difficult to follow a single topic in separate forums.

When cycling with fish, water change is your friend, Depending on what your temp is, you can see the ammonia spike at different time. <Cold water tank can take 10-12 weeks to cycle, so not cycled at 5 weeks is not out of line.>

You can speed things up if you have a source to seed the tank with - media from another tank is best. <And I agree, most of the "live bacteria" products don't work well.>

Have you started checking nitrites yet?

 

[osis62]

Nitrittes

They are about zero still. Just nervous i am doing something wrong. Just want to get through this to get fish My tank is 79 degress so i thought it would cycle by now. Any advice would be great. Should i change the water often 25 percent or 10 percent?

 

[sieski]

They are about zero still. Just nervous i am doing something wrong. Just want to get through this to get fish My tank is 79 degress so i thought it would cycle by now. Any advice would be great. Should i change the water often 25 percent or 10 percent?

Depends on the ammonia, you want to keep that at no more than 1ppm as a MAXIMUM but preferably at 0.25ppm I'm sure I read somewhere that a obscene amount of ammonia can stall the cycle. Are you usin test strips or a liquid test kid?

 

[mfdrookie516]

ammonia above 8.0 will stall a cycle, but if there are fish in it, 8.0 would kill the fish too, so i doubt thats any worry

 

[jsoong]

Should i change the water often 25 percent or 10 percent?

If you want to keep your fish healthy, you need to do as much pwc as needed to keep ammonia below 0.5. Your fish seems OK with your level of 4 only because of the ammo-lock. That is dangerously high for the fish.

I would suggest doing 50% changes daily until you get the levels down to more reasonable levels. Having ammonia level lower will prolong the cycle a bit, but is much safer for your fish.

You are doing fine right now. You just have to be patient & wait it out. As always, seeding the tank will help a great deal. If you know someone with a tank, try to get a bit of used media to speed things up.