No cycle after 4 months? Clorine?

[Normalnot1]

Hi guys, I'm in Phx at my daughters place. She got her 10 gal tank in March. It is beautiful! The water is clear, fish seem healthy.
Here's the problem, she has a API test kit, she just in the last week started using Prime. But she has never found anything in her water except for the ammonia.
Tank specs:
10 gal
Bio-wheel HOB filter
Air pump, nut only 1 small air stone. But the filter seems to creat bubbles pretty well.
Stock
1 Dalmatian Mollie
3 White Cloud Mt Minnows

Last test
Ph 8
Ammo 1-2 ppm
0 nitrite
0 nitrate

Did a 60%+ wc
Plus added 5 ml prime

Local fish store gave her part of a filter sponge that she stuck in the filter, but that was 3 wks ago. No changes. Still no cycle. The water looks crystal clear, but has never cycled. Prior to getting the Prime, she was using Tetra Aqua Safe Plus, as directed.

I made coffee here this morning and was really surprised with the chorine smell in the tap water. She lives in an apt community on city water. Could the chlorine be so high that it is killing the BB before it gets started, even after the Tetra Safe?
We had to come here quickly due to a family emergency, so I forgot to bring some seeded material.
Ideas?

 

[Normalnot1]

I almost forgot! Here is picture!

 

[jlk]

The results posted above are from the tank, correct? Can you please test the tap for ammonia and let us know what this reads?

 

[lbirath001]

No one will probably agree with me on this..... Check your tap water..... Now the controversial part. I was having the same problem as you with my tank not cycling. I was doing 50% water changes everyday trying to keep the ammonia down. That was keeping me from letting the cycle take place. I was advised by my LFS advisor to stop doing water changes. Doing this made my numbers jump up to extreme levels and then they fell about a week and a half later. Since you only have a few fish it might be easy to keep them in another location or something. Otherwise you might lose them. If you keep doing larger water changes you might cycle next year sometime. I was listening to everyone on here who told me to do water changes trying to keep the ammonia down. As soon as I stopped, it cycled. Good luck!!! Oh and because its 10 gallon, it is harder to cycle from what I read. There is also a product called turbo start that puts Beneficial bacteria in your tank to speed up the process.

 

[brybell]

this may help...

I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice

 

[Normalnot1]

Thanks you guys. I think I can respond to all.

My daughter tested her tap water, zero Ammonia in that.

I did read the sticky, and she has done pretty much all of those.
As for letting the ammo stay hi, it kinda does. She is doing the water changes, but not every day. She even let it go for about 5 days.
How high can she let it go? Safely, with the fish in there? They all seem to be happy and healthy. No tattered fins or burned gills. She really doesn't have a place that she could put the fish to get them out of there.
My thought was that maybe somehow the chlorine being up like that may be killing the bb.

What if she replaced as much water as possible with the .25 a gal filtered water from the machine at her complex? Would that help? And would she then be stuck having to do that forever?
She wants some shrimp but was told they can't deal with the ammonia.
Thank you folks!
You're awesome friends.

 

[jlk]

Look up the municipality that serves her area online. Most have water reports available online although they may not be very current. It should list the type of disinfectant used, average amounts and high/low levels. If nothing is available online or the reports are dated, contact them for more information. This will be the only way to know absolutely the amount and type of disinfectant used and if this may be the source of the issue here.

 

[Normalnot1]

Ok, we found the report online. Listed for disinfectants they say
Chlorine Dioxide avg 0.22 mg per liter
With a range of N/D to .61 mg per liter

They also list:
Chlorine Residual. Avg .80 mg per liter
Range of N/D - 2.0 mg per liter

I am horrible with math, so I'm hoping someone else here isn't!

And, since she did the 60%+ water change, she finally got the Prime. However, since I was driving down the hwy, i was of little help, we got confused about dosage so, she put in a full 5 ml! Into her ten gal tank. It wasn't till I just got home that I recognized the error. The fish look fine, so we hope they will be ok.
She tested tonight and all parameter are the same, except ammo which tested a lime green, .5 - 1.0
I told her not to do any more tonight. Hopefully, one of the folks here have some ideas.
Blessings
So, anyone?

 

[lbirath001]

Thanks you guys. I think I can respond to all.

My daughter tested her tap water, zero Ammonia in that.

I did read the sticky, and she has done pretty much all of those.
As for letting the ammo stay hi, it kinda does. She is doing the water changes, but not every day. She even let it go for about 5 days.
How high can she let it go? Safely, with the fish in there? They all seem to be happy and healthy. No tattered fins or burned gills. She really doesn't have a place that she could put the fish to get them out of there.
My thought was that maybe somehow the chlorine being up like that may be killing the bb.

What if she replaced as much water as possible with the .25 a gal filtered water from the machine at her complex? Would that help? And would she then be stuck having to do that forever?
She wants some shrimp but was told they can't deal with the ammonia.
Thank you folks!
You're awesome friends.

The only advise I have is to stop water changes completely. Some fish may die because of the cycling process. My fish stayed low in the tank and were not active but did survive. They are all fine now. If you stop your water changes it might take a few weeks to cycle. Mine was just over a week. I also added turbo start to my tank which helped. Not many will agree with me on this though.

 

[Andrew McFadden]

Something isn't adding up with ammonia being high or possibly chlorine. The fish would be having some type of issues in my opinion. Double check the ammonia test just to be safe. Another thing I would do is test with a different kit.

 

[Normalnot1]

Something isn't adding up with ammonia being high or possibly chlorine. The fish would be having some type of issues in my opinion. Double check the ammonia test just to be safe. Another thing I would do is test with a different kit.

Yup, that got considered, so she took a sample to her local, real, mom and pop pet place- no a big box, and results matched

So I hope you guys keep the ideas coming. And, i thank you, in advance because I just KNOW that someone has a the answer. Just gotta find that person!

 

[Mebbid]

Whenever I see a 0 nitrate reading on a tank that more than a few weeks old I always feel the need to point this out and more often than not this is the problem.

Are you certain that the nitrate test is being done correctly?

First: You have to add 10 drops of bottle 1 to the test tube of water
Second: Shake the test tube for 5 seconds
Third: Shake bottle 2 REALLY HARD for 30 seconds
Fourth: Add 10 drops of bottle 2 to the test tube
Fifth: Shake test tube REALLY HARD for 1 minute straight
Sixth: Wait 5 minutes before reading.

If that's not the problem then there has to be something in the water supply killing the BB.

As for the suggestion to stop changing your water: The ammonia is evenly distributed throughout the water. Bacteria don't need a high concentration of ammonia / nitrite to eat and divide, it just needs access to those few available molecules of ammonia it can get. I think it is more probable that your tank was nearly done cycling when you stopped doing water changes and it just finished during that time period.

 

[Normalnot1]

Yep, the Nitrate test is being done, to the letter, so that's not it.
As for water changes, I'll be honest, I'm not there, so I'm not sure how often they're being done. We don't talk everyday, sometimes days apart so...
But here is what I think is the biggest thing. The fish look fantastic! The water is beautiful! (Not to mention, I think she decorated it MUCH better than mine!)
Oh! Just thought of something!
If you can see in the pic I posted, she used very little gravel. She said she bough 1 bag of black gravel and a small one of this really pretty white busted up shells or something. While I think it really looks great, could it be that there isn't enough gravel for the BB?
Her HOB filter has the Bio Wheel, (which I think it runs backwards. I pictured in my head that the water would run over the top of it into the tank, but it doesn't, so that seemed weird to me, but that's how it is.) and her decor has the feel of a light coating of slime.
The minnows seem to stay near the surface, is that typical, or is that a sign of something? I personally am a fan of bubble walls and stuff, so I wondered about oxygen, if she had enough. She has a feature that looks like a waterfall, where the bubbles run up behind a clear piece, and then enter the water just an inch or so below the surface.
Thanks again for your continued assistance!

 

[jwh0818]

I dont know if someone stated this but in my experience, if you habe a filter with carbon then you should remove it.

 

[Mebbid]

Yep, the Nitrate test is being done, to the letter, so that's not it.
As for water changes, I'll be honest, I'm not there, so I'm not sure how often they're being done. We don't talk everyday, sometimes days apart so...
But here is what I think is the biggest thing. The fish look fantastic! The water is beautiful! (Not to mention, I think she decorated it MUCH better than mine!)
Oh! Just thought of something!
If you can see in the pic I posted, she used very little gravel. She said she bough 1 bag of black gravel and a small one of this really pretty white busted up shells or something. While I think it really looks great, could it be that there isn't enough gravel for the BB?
Her HOB filter has the Bio Wheel, (which I think it runs backwards. I pictured in my head that the water would run over the top of it into the tank, but it doesn't, so that seemed weird to me, but that's how it is.) and her decor has the feel of a light coating of slime.
The minnows seem to stay near the surface, is that typical, or is that a sign of something? I personally am a fan of bubble walls and stuff, so I wondered about oxygen, if she had enough. She has a feature that looks like a waterfall, where the bubbles run up behind a clear piece, and then enter the water just an inch or so below the surface.
Thanks again for your continued assistance!

The BB will live everywhere in the tank. The gravel, decorations, filter, and tank walls. They have plenty of space to grow, especially with that bio wheel (which is working properly) The light coating of sliminess is normal so don't worry about that. If there is surface agitation then there should be enough oxygen without the bubblers. Also, if the guppies are at the surface while the rest of the fish aren't then it's a possible sign of sickness in the guppies.

I dont know if someone stated this but in my experience, if you habe a filter with carbon then you should remove it.

Why?

 

[Normalnot1]

Really? Take the carbon out? Hmm. Anyone else second this?

 

[jwh0818]

Really? Take the carbon out? Hmm. Anyone else second this?

I do! Thats how ive always done it. The wheel will hold all the bb

 

[Normalnot1]

The BB will live everywhere in the tank. The gravel, decorations, filter, and tank walls. They have plenty of space to grow, especially with that bio wheel (which is working properly) The light coating of sliminess is normal so don't worry about that. If there is surface agitation then there should be enough oxygen without the bubblers. Also, if the guppies are at the surface while the rest of the fish aren't then it's a possible sign of sickness in the guppies.

Why?

Well yeah, these are minnows, not guppies. And when I say that, I don't mean like when my fish was sick, he was at the surface seeming to gasp. That's not what these are doing. They just seem to be fish that prefer the top few inches of water, like swimming kinda near the surface, like the would do in a mountain stream, which is their nature. So, does that change your thought any?
I mean, I don't know, and I'm a 2 hour drive away, and frankly being back in Phoenix AZ, this time of year which is Monsoon season, is just the epitome of being in Hell! ??

 

[Mebbid]

Really? Take the carbon out? Hmm. Anyone else second this?

This topic has been argued to death on this forum multiple times. People supporting the removal of carbon state that it will grow a specific bacteria on it that can be problematic to fish.

They state a particular scientific study that was done concerning drinking water for humans that has been ran through exhausted carbon. They specifically tested for concentrations of a single bacterial strain. There was a mall increase of that bacteria found in the drinking water and people tout this as proof that it will grow that bacterial strain and kill your fish.

The only problem with scientific studies is that they are VERY SPECIFIC. They didn't test for anything but that one strain of bacteria which would grow on everything in a fish tank to begin with.

There is another argument for removing exhausted carbon in that people say that it will leech chemicals back into the water. Even seachem states this won't happen.

 

[Normalnot1]

I do! Thats how ive always done it. The wheel will hold all the bb

So your saying to take the carbon granules out of the floss bag? I'm not sure I get why. The carbon is not gonna kill the Bactria we want, but it might detoxify the ammo. At least that would be my thought.
I may need 1 more strong agreement with this idea before I pass it along. But I'm open.