Cycling... Help! What's my next step?

[BluBlu]

I'm on day 9 of cycling a 55 gallon freshwater tank. This is my second tank (first one is 20 gallon), but my first time doing a fish-less cycle. The first time I followed the advice of the LFS and added the fish after a few days with Prime and Stability. I only started testing recently, but since my old tank is well established I've only seen the Nitrates fluctuate and the Ammonia and Nitrites have stayed at zero. I'm now having such a hard time determining the colours of the test kit and so my numbers might be off.

To seed my new aquarium I used one of the sponge things from my old filter and put in a a few of the aquarium decorations. I've been putting in Stability daily and adding in fish flakes. I'm at the point where I'm not sure if I need to just keep waiting or feed the bacteria by either adding ammonia or fish.... or something else entirely. Please help.

Oct 3
Ammonia: 0.5 (not sure if from tap water or Prime or?)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10

Oct 5
Ammonia: 1
Nitrite: 0.5
Nitrate: 5

Oct 7
Ammonia: 1
Nitrite: 0.5
Nitrate: 10

Oct 9
Ammonia: 0.5
Nitrite: 0.25
Nitrate: 10

Oct 11
Ammonia: 0.5
Nitrite: 0.25
Nitrate: 5

So appreciated!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Its entirely up to you where you go from here.

Your fishless cycle isnt complete, but if you want to add fish, stop adding fish food. Your system is cycling to some degree, so either wait it out until all your ammonia and nitrite has processed into nitrate, or do a big water change to get them down. You will then be doing a fish in cycle, but with the benefit of what beneficial bacteria you have built up while doing your fishless cycle.

If you want to carry on and complete your fishless cycle, you need to continue until your system can cycle out 2ppm ammonia into 0ppm ammonia and nitrite in 24 hours. Your nitrates should also be steadily rising. Doing this with fish food, its difficult to judge how much you should be adding to get ammonia up to 2ppm. My prefered method would be an ammonium chloride product like Dr Tims Ammonium Chloride. Using a product like this means you can accurately dose your 2ppm.

 

[BluBlu]

Thank you so much. One last, probably stupid question: If I add the ammonia do I continue to add stability ?

 

[Aiken Drum]

If you are using bottled bacteria, dose it in line with the instructions. Ive never used stability so dont know what the dosage instructions are. I doubt its a daily dose until cycled though. That would cost a small fortune.

 

[charliebankston]

If you are using bottled bacteria, dose it in line with the instructions. Ive never used stability so dont know what the dosage instructions are. I doubt its a daily dose until cycled though. That would cost a small fortune.

I think it is. Daily for 7 days for new tank start up

 

[BluBlu]

New problem..

I searched for ammonia and couldn’t find it and got talked into adding fish from my LFS (I hope it’s not bad advice). I ended up with 3 mollies. Got them home and acclimated and sitting there admiring them when suddenly...

What’s that?

Is that a... snail?

Yep! Yep it was!

Apparently I had some hitchhikers on my plants from last week. I found one rather small one and knowing that there would be others I found 4 other teeny tiny babies. What do I do? What do I do? I picked out those 5... of course there are more. I’m so new to all of this, I’m very overwhelmed!

 

[Aiken Drum]

New problem..

I searched for ammonia and couldn’t find it and got talked into adding fish from my LFS (I hope it’s not bad advice). I ended up with 3 mollies. Got them home and acclimated and sitting there admiring them when suddenly...

What’s that?

Is that a... snail?

Yep! Yep it was!

Apparently I had some hitchhikers on my plants from last week. I found one rather small one and knowing that there would be others I found 4 other teeny tiny babies. What do I do? What do I do? I picked out those 5... of course there are more. I’m so new to all of this, I’m very overwhelmed!

You might want to create a new thread for the new issue.