Retarting fishless cycle from scratch...help!

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sammybelle

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 23, 2012
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94
Location
Lowell, MA
I started a fishless cycle on my FW 55 gal tank on 1/31. I added in a dechlorinator/dechloraminator called Simple Start on that date and dosed ammonia using calculator on this site to 4.0ppm. Ph was 7.2. Turned thermometer up to 82. There had been no movement in the ammonia reading, so on 2/6 I once again treated the tank with Prime (thinking maybe the no name brand wasn't effective) and also added some used filter material to seed and a couple of live plants. Still absolutely no movement in the ammonia reading even today. 0 nitrites. A few days ago, one poster advised doing a 100% water change to restore buffers and nutrients (can someone explain to me what that means?). So today I did approximately an 80% water change and treated the water with Prime before adding (again, someone said 2 drops of Prime per gallon of water--I hope this is right!) Anyway, the ammonia reading is now 0.5ppm with the new water in the tank. (BTW,the water seems much clearer than what was in the tank before the PWC, and my tap water has 0 ammonia.) Should I just leave the tank alone now, or, to what level should I dose the ammonia this time? Should I leave that old filter seed material there, or have I killed it? Thanks for your help!
 
U need to dose it back up to 4 ppm. U don't need to do water changes if ur doing the fish less cycle unless ur ph starts to drop. Check the ammonia and nitrates every 24 hrs once the ammonia starts dropping keep dosing it back to 4 then as more ammonia is eaten ur nitrites will rise. Look up a member called Librarygirl she's written a very informative article about fishless cycle. NEVER throw ur old filters away!!!! If ur HOB can hold 2 filters put 2 in it then if one wears out you'll have a spare.
 
boadams87, are you saying there was no need for me to do this water change--even the ammonia didn't budge in 11 days?
 
And BTW, I am using the cycling guide you linked for me...I just can't understand why my ammonia didn't move at all!!
 
No u didn't really have to, it didn't budge because you don't have enough bacteria yet to make it move. But with a fishless cycle ur gonna need alot of patience. But don't worry it'll start moving once they start growing.
 
But make sure u check it and ph everyday, cause if the PH drops to much it'll stop the cycle.
 
Can you offer any suggestions as to why the other poster suggested I "restore buffers" to my tank water? I haven't any idea what this means; is it because my ammonia remained at 4.0 that he thought my "buffers" were used up?
 
That means if ur ph drops u will need to restore it by doing a wc. And that restores all the buffers the bacteria need.
 
Then I'm really dumbfounded...can't imagine why the pH stayed steady at 7.2 and the ammonia never went down after 10 days. I kinda fear that the same thing will happen again!
 
I even thought the cloudiness in the tank could be a bacterial bloom, but if it were, I would expect that it would have had some effect (even if minor) on the ammo level!
 
Tank water ammo level after 80% WC is 0.5 ppm; pH is somewhere between 7.0 and 7.2 (hard to distinguish on color chart). I also tested my tap water, ammo level is 0.
 
I guess there eating slow or coulda been slowed down due to that WC. But it'll be ok, they'll start.
 
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