3 months fishless cycle...and still going- ARGH!

[Fresh2o]

Pebble - I really cannot add much to Linwood's posts. Some good points raised. I missed the Prime dosage. And if you feel that the nitrate might be excessively high, you could always dilute a portion of tank water half and half with DI water and retest. Or one part tank water and three parts DI water. And multiple by 2 and 4, respectively.


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[PebbleVB]

Ammonia is going up and Nitrite is till up

I think I'm losing this fishless cycle battle. Whenever my ammonia did drop down to zero, it took 5 days to do that, and this has happened twice. I thought my nightmare of 3+ months wasn't going to get any worse, but I was wrong. Nitrite reading was between 5 - 2 ppm.

Then on Thursday, I did a small water change - took out 2.5 gallons, dosed 1mL to the equal amount of new water and added to tank. I also did the reading prior to water change: ammonia was .2 ppm, nitrite was between 3 - 2 ppm.

Friday's reading (24 hours after the water change on Thursday): exactly the same thing as on Thursday. Then, I did another water change, this time I took out 5 gallons of water from the tank, dose .5mL Prime to new water and added that to the tank (5 gallons of water).

Saturday's reading ( 25 hours after the water change on Friday): ammonia and nitrite reading was the same: .25 and 5 -2 ppm respectively. Then I did another water change: took out 6 gallons of water, dose .6mL Prime to the new 6 gallons of water and added that to the tank.

Sunday's reading (28 hours after the water change on Saturday): ammonia is now .5 ppm and nitrite is between 3 - 2 ppm. So...my ammonia is going up after the last 3 days of water change!!!! Nitrite doesn't go down at all!



I have NO Clue where and/ or how I did that make things get worse? Please, please help!!!

 

[Linwood]

I have no idea. There's something wrong. My fishless cycle completed a few days ago. It took 32 days, but by two weeks it was processing ammonia overnight to zero. Nitrites stayed way off the charts most of the last 3 weeks, but it finished. Last time I cycled a 10g it took even less time (but I did seed it).

People do this all the time without issues, even if impatience makes it seem like there are issues. You are almost too patient; there's something more wrong here.

Are there any really knowledgeable LFS's nearby that you can get to test your water, compare to your tests? I can't see how the test can be wrong, but maybe there's a bad kit, and you are getting erroneous readings. Did you test the tap water (maybe you said, don't have time to read the whole thread right now); bad readings there might indicate either bad tap water or bad test kit. A bad container of prime (does it have a strong sulfur smell (it should).

Frankly if it were me at this point I'd be tempted to buy an aquarium screen saver.

More seriously I think I'd start over at this point. All media in the trash, clean the tank thoroughly without soaps, but scrape off any residue that might be leaching... look for something that might be contaminating it.

But the other aspect is see if a local LFS or club might have someone who can give you some seed material (pieces of sponge, etc.) that are from a cycled tank, that should speed things up. But I just did my 30 with zero seed, zero bottled bacteria... nothing but pure water in a clean tank. Bacteria is everywhere, it just takes longer to start without a seed.

Sorry... maybe others have a possible explanation. I'm out of ideas.

 

[Hholly]

Pebble, how big is your tank?

 

[PebbleVB]

Hi, Hholly - I'm attempting to cycle the 10- gallon tank for almost 4 months now. I'm so sad, and more so, I have no clue what's going on. I hope you read all of my answers to the questions others had tried to ask... I can't imagine having to re-start everything...this is so painful!!! Anything you need to know that you think you can help is Greatly Appreciated!

 

[Hholly]

If I were you, I would seek out another fish keeper or a local fish store and ask them to share some used, cultured filter material to seed your filter. Or, try a fish-in cycle. I don't know what's going on in your tank. But if you are willing to stock gradually(and you really shouldn't stock a lot in a 10 gallon), you should be able to just monitor the ammonia and nitrites with fish in and do water changes accordingly. If you don't use Prime water conditioner already, get some. When doing water changes dose the tank for 20 gallons instead of 10. Add the Prime before refilling, or add it directly to the new water before it goes in the tank. Whatever you do, don't change your filter material until it's falling apart. And when you do, leave some of the old stuff to culture the new.
Does that make sense?
Good luck.