Some help on cycling, please!

[FishOwner]

I'm in the process of cycling a tank with Seachem Stability. My ammonia levels dropped from 4 ppm about 5 days ago to 0-0.25 ppm today. My nitrites are at 2 ppm and my nitrates are at 80-160 ppm (on the higher end, like 120-160).

Here are the three options I have (in my opinion):
Add ammonia to 1 ppm
Wait until nitrites are gone
Do a 50-75% water change and check if the cycling is done

Which do I pick, and are there any options that are better?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Continue to test everyday. If your ammonia drops to below 1ppm then redose back to 2ppm. Once you are able to dose 2ppm ammonia and both the ammonia and nitrites read 0ppm after 24 hours then your tank is cycled. Then do a big water change (or back to back water big changes) to bring your nitrates down, preferably to around 10ppm and you can add fish.

Looking at your post history you have been cycling a couple of weeks. Fishless cycle is typically a month, can be longer. My last one took 5 or 6 weeks.

 

[FishOwner]

Sounds good. I have been cycling for around 2 weeks now and am using Stability to hopefully speed up the process.

 

[FishOwner]

I'm very confused... my nitrates dropped from 160 to 40 randomly without ANY water changes. Anyone know whats going on?

 

[Aiken Drum]

You might have done the test incorrectly or one of the samples may have been contaminated? I would retest to make sure. Are you using API liquid test kit? If so make sure you really shake the heck out of bottle #2.

 

[FishOwner]

Wow. I tested twice in the morning to be sure and both times it was low. This time as soon as the reagent hit the water it went bloodred, without even shaking it. I'm very sure there's no contamination because I use a dropper to fill my test tubes.

 

[Desperado070]

I cycle me tanks in about 9 days +/-.
Any bottle of bacteria wil do, honestly.

Doing fishles cycle using Ammonium chloride. (NH4Cl)
Add about 0.10/0.20 grams per 10 gallon...
First day you add NH3 and you let it go, test NH3 / NO2 for baseline a hour later.
Probably you only gonna see NO2 after day 3, only from then you gonna add new ammonium. Everyday keep testing the NH3/4 and NO2 and only add Ammonium whenever NH3/4 is gone and NO2 is lower than 0.3.
Until you have to add Ammonium everyday, now when that is gone and also the NO2 created from the NH3 has been converted into NO3 within 24 hours, your tank is cycled.

Make sure you got the Purity> 99.7%.
If you think Ammonium chloride is dangerous, well, we dutchies make candy from it.

After your tank has been cycled you change 90% of the water and add the fishes.
Unlike most other methodes, this has "no" NH3 nor NO2 spikes after you add the fishes.

 

[FishOwner]

Thanks for the advice!

I've got a whole new problem now. There's a huge outbreak of brown algae in my tank. It's on the gravel, decor, and plants. I'm pretty sure it also melted one of my Anubias.

Does anyone have any cures for this mess? Gravel vacuuming doesn't do anything except raise new gravel up to the surface to be covered all over.
I'm cleaning anything I find on the decor and glass with an old toothbrush.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Thanks for the advice!

I've got a whole new problem now. There's a huge outbreak of brown algae in my tank. It's on the gravel, decor, and plants. I'm pretty sure it also melted one of my Anubias.

Does anyone have any cures for this mess? Gravel vacuuming doesn't do anything except raise new gravel up to the surface to be covered all over.
I'm cleaning anything I find on the decor and glass with an old toothbrush.

Its probably diatoms, which although is often called brown algae is actually a single cell organism that grow out of control when the nutrients in the tank are out of control and often affect new tanks and cycling tanks.

They generally clear up after a couple of weeks. My tank took a couple of months. I didnt do anything specifically, but it cleared up shortly after i upgraded my lights, so possibly when the plants started to do better they took up the nutrients and starved out the diatoms.

 

[FishOwner]

I was planning on getting some christmas moss, so maybe the addition of that will deal with the diatoms. I've also heard Nerite snails like to eat them, but I have no idea how they could eat of the gravel in my tank.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Apparently nerite snails do eat diatoms, but they did nothing in my tank. Maybe they got full up on regular algae, but i never saw them anywhere near where the diatoms appeared. They will eat off the gravel OK.

Word of caution about nerites, i wish i hadnt put them in. They will leave little white eggs everywhere that are difficult to remove, especially from driftwood. The eggs are unsightly. I spend maybe 1 hour a month picking 100s of eggs off wood with a dental scraper. On the plus side the eggs wont hatch in freshwater, so you wont be inundated with snails. If you are ok with the look of the snail eggs or are ok with spending time picking them off everything they are a great snail though.

 

[FishOwner]

Ok. So it's just a waiting game then?

 

[Desperado070]

Same story for ramhorn snails...
They lay eggs on everything and before you know you are overrun.
Luckily enough do me female guppies eat the eggs...

It started out in me male guppy tank, probably came in with some plants.
I never wanted snails in the first place but I did had problems with algae in me other tanks.
Green hair algae and brown algae, since me male tank was the only one without the problems with maybe 2 / 3 big snails in there I putted them in me other tanks.

They breed like crazy so I left the eggs but took the young ones out.
After a while, now having around 5 adults orso in me 30 gallon I actually never saw young ones in there.
I did saw egg spots on the window now and then but never really thought about it.
So a couple of days ago I was looking and yeah for sure me girls are going crazy at them, until the white stuff falls off and then eat the eggs.

Easy math, female guppies think about food and the males are only busy with there sexual frustrations or something down those lines...

Not to mentioned, guppies are real good algae cleaners.

Ok. So it's just a waiting game then?

Put in some fast growing plants to speed things up.
Take them out later, a few at a time.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ok. So it's just a waiting game then?

You can add the plants, but I wouldnt add snails yet till you are cycled.