How do i fix my cycle?? I’m begging for help.

[bluemoon3622]

Since september, I have not been able to fix my bio load. I started cycling this tank december of 2022, let it cycle for almost 2 months while I decided which fish I wanted to get. Once parameters were all clear, I got my axolotls in february. I’ve never had any issues with this tank until I went on vacation in september. I was gone for a week and trusted my family to feed and check on them every other day. they eat live worms, so I continuously repeated to them that they need to be washed off then fed directly, making sure they eat the worm. Unfortunately, I came back to 5 decomposing worms, my filter not running and cloudy water to the point you couldn’t see my axolotls. My filter was filled with the junk it tried to filter out and I made the mistake of deep cleaning it and replacing the cartridge which destroyed my bio load. Ever since then my tank will not cycle no matter what I do. I’ve tried multiple brands of nitrifying bacteria, 30% water changes daily, RODI water, an extra sponge from my other tank, quick start, and live plants. no matter how many times it get cleaned a week, little specks keep forming and forming. Even if I did a 75% change (only when parameters were horrible) the specks would overpower the clean water and it looked like I never even cleaned it. These specks caused my filter to break, and I upgraded to a better brand. It’s been less cloudy than it used to with the new filter and helped my parameters go down, but it’s still not clear and I keep having ammonia spikes. I need to cycle this tank, but I can’t get a big enough quarantine tank. I’m currently a college student sharing a 2 bedroom apartment, and have to keep my 55 gal, 37 gal, and 10 gal tanks in my room. My landlord doesn’t usually allow big tanks over 20 gallons, however she was very understanding of my circumstances and allowed my 2 big tanks. my 2 axolotls were rehomed so they are full grown and won’t fit in 2 10 gallon tanks. PLEASE PLEASE give me tips on how to fix this. it’s been 5 months constantly trying to get this tank back to normal, and my babies deserve to be healthy and happy again.

Current parameters:
- nitrite:0
- nitrate: 5.0ppm
- ammonia: 1.0ppm
- pH: 7.8
- temp: 64.3°F

 

[Aiken Drum]

What brands of bacteria have you tried?

I presume you managed to cycle the tank previously and regularly checked your parameters before you started to have issues?

 

[Effluorescence]

Since september, I have not been able to fix my bio load. I started cycling this tank december of 2022, let it cycle for almost 2 months while I decided which fish I wanted to get. Once parameters were all clear, I got my axolotls in february. I’ve never had any issues with this tank until I went on vacation in september. I was gone for a week and trusted my family to feed and check on them every other day. they eat live worms, so I continuously repeated to them that they need to be washed off then fed directly, making sure they eat the worm. Unfortunately, I came back to 5 decomposing worms, my filter not running and cloudy water to the point you couldn’t see my axolotls. My filter was filled with the junk it tried to filter out and I made the mistake of deep cleaning it and replacing the cartridge which destroyed my bio load. Ever since then my tank will not cycle no matter what I do. I’ve tried multiple brands of nitrifying bacteria, 30% water changes daily, RODI water, an extra sponge from my other tank, quick start, and live plants. no matter how many times it get cleaned a week, little specks keep forming and forming. Even if I did a 75% change (only when parameters were horrible) the specks would overpower the clean water and it looked like I never even cleaned it. These specks caused my filter to break, and I upgraded to a better brand. It’s been less cloudy than it used to with the new filter and helped my parameters go down, but it’s still not clear and I keep having ammonia spikes. I need to cycle this tank, but I can’t get a big enough quarantine tank. I’m currently a college student sharing a 2 bedroom apartment, and have to keep my 55 gal, 37 gal, and 10 gal tanks in my room. My landlord doesn’t usually allow big tanks over 20 gallons, however she was very understanding of my circumstances and allowed my 2 big tanks. my 2 axolotls were rehomed so they are full grown and won’t fit in 2 10 gallon tanks. PLEASE PLEASE give me tips on how to fix this. it’s been 5 months constantly trying to get this tank back to normal, and my babies deserve to be healthy and happy again.

Current parameters:
- nitrite:0
- nitrate: 5.0ppm
- ammonia: 1.0ppm
- pH: 7.8
- temp: 64.3°F

What do you mean by specks?

If the ammonia isn't being processed there aren't colonies to process it. You can increase the likelihood that they develop sufficient quantities to process present ammonia by increasing the colonizable surface area. Is the tank empty of everything except a filter? You can add porous clayballs in a pouch to the tank filter and dose it with bacteria again. The porosity of the clay balls increases the surface area available for bacteria colonization and in turn a higher ammonia load can be processed..

There are bacteria in that tank and they are aged bc they are processing the nitrite well and the nitrate levels are OK too. So thats an indicator of an established colony that's functioning, there just may not be enough bacteria to process all the present ammonia.

My rec would be increase the colonizable surface area to increase the density of the bacteria colony in the tank so they can process higher loads of ammonia

Cloudiness is an indicator that the cycling is occurring, you could be prolonging the cycling process by doing a water change when it gets cloudy. The bacteria that is attempting establish is removed in the water change and then it clouds up again to compensate for the loss and this is repeated leading to an incomplete cycle