Hi, i’ve never kept fish before so bare with me. I have a ten gallon that i set up about three days ago with everything except plants. I’ve been putting three pinches of fish food in a day, but so far i’ve only got readings of .25 ppm ammonia. Why is there no ammonia spike? Am i being too impatient? Also, i’ve been adding seachem stability in the instructed doses to “speed up” the process. I should also mention on the first day the water was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit with a low ph, and yesterday i added some baking soda and it’s now at 7.5. Temperature is around 78 and rising, the heater i’m using is taking its time. I am using the top fin freshwater aquarium test kit.
Cycle not starting?
- Thread starter Kat000
- Start date
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Cycling a tank typically takes 6 to 8 weeks. You are 3 days in. Ammonia can only come from whatever you are putting in. In your case, you are adding 3 pinches of fish food a day and its resulting in 0.25ppm ammonia. If you want to raise your ammonia higher, the only way to do this is to add more ammonia, in your case that means more fish food.
Im not a fan of using fish food as an ammonia source for a fishless cycle. Its difficult to know how much to add to elevate ammonia to the required level to get the cycle going. It also gets mouldy after a while. You are going to be putting a lot of fish food into your tank that will just decay.
If you want to go forward with a fishless cycle i would recommend using either pure ammonia or an aquarium specific ammonium chloride product.
Could i ask why you are doing a fishless cycle? A lot of the traffic we get on this site is people struggling with cycling their tanks. By far more people have issues with fishless cycles over fish in cycles.
I can post a method of either a fishless cycle with ammonium chloride that better explains the process. Or i can give you a method of fish in cycle that will be much more likely to work for you.
Im not a fan of using fish food as an ammonia source for a fishless cycle. Its difficult to know how much to add to elevate ammonia to the required level to get the cycle going. It also gets mouldy after a while. You are going to be putting a lot of fish food into your tank that will just decay.
If you want to go forward with a fishless cycle i would recommend using either pure ammonia or an aquarium specific ammonium chloride product.
Could i ask why you are doing a fishless cycle? A lot of the traffic we get on this site is people struggling with cycling their tanks. By far more people have issues with fishless cycles over fish in cycles.
I can post a method of either a fishless cycle with ammonium chloride that better explains the process. Or i can give you a method of fish in cycle that will be much more likely to work for you.
thanks! i just ordered Dr Tim’s ammonium chloride and i’ll still be using the fish-less cycle method. Having a controlled dose and being able to check it sooner will definitely make me worry less and will hopefully make the process a bit faster. I think fish-less is the best method for me because it allows me time to get used to having an aquarium in my room and caring for it, I’ve researched it the most, and it makes me feel safer knowing my ignorance isn’t putting any animals in danger lol.
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