Where's my cycle

[Iodizedfate]

So I had typed this whole thing out and then accidentally refreshed my browser.

I got a 10g tank about a month ago

Not gunna type it out again but a long story short: been trying to cycle for a month. Couldn't find ammonia and after trying fish food, cleaned the tank and got raw shrimp. Shrimp in for 2 weeks and after pwc to bring ammonia down to 2 ppm still no cycle. I got a plant at the beginning of the week and ammonia still goes up. Needless to say I'm frustrated. I have no place to get seed material and frankly I'm sick of waiting.

ammonia - 2 - 4 ppm
nitrite - 0 ppm
PH - 8
Temp - 82F

I have used Tetra AquaSafe plus to treat the water.
I have foam that came with the plant that i figured might have some seed material in it so i put some in the filter.

any thoughts?

 

[mrhelton]

If you can't find ammonia in a store, you can always buy it online (I know Amazon sells it). If I were you, I would buy ammonia online and do a massive (like 90%) water change before adding it. (make sure to add your water treatment before adding the water so you don't harm any existing bacteria if you have any)

It really seems like after that amount of time you should have seen some progress, I'm not sure what could be going on. Hopefully someone with more expertise than myself can chime in.

And related to the browser refresh thing, if you use Firefox or Chrome, you can add an extension called "Lazarus" that can restore text you type into any field in a situation like that. Extremely useful.

 

[Nubster]

Cycles can take 6-8 weeks or longer. Unless your ammonia was above 5ppm...doing water changes during the cycle won't help and may hurt.

 

[giants1249er]

Do you have an Ace hardware store in your area? The ammonia (Ace Janitorial Strength Ammonia) they have is the right one for cycling your tank. It cost about $2-3 per bottle. I've used this and am almost done with my cycling.

 

[librarygirl]

It can take a while; a month total is long enough to have at least some movement in the cycle, but you did switch ammonia sources, etc, in that time so perhaps it was interrupted. If you can get some pure ammonia it would be easier to monitor and dose. Also if you're looking for seeded media, try an active sponge filter from here (make sure it says "active" which means seeded; the others are just plain filters).

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

So I had typed this whole thing out and then accidentally refreshed my browser.

I got a 10g tank about a month ago

Not gunna type it out again but a long story short: been trying to cycle for a month. Couldn't find ammonia and after trying fish food, cleaned the tank and got raw shrimp. Shrimp in for 2 weeks and after pwc to bring ammonia down to 2 ppm still no cycle. I got a plant at the beginning of the week and ammonia still goes up. Needless to say I'm frustrated. I have no place to get seed material and frankly I'm sick of waiting.

ammonia - 2 - 4 ppm
nitrite - 0 ppm
PH - 8
Temp - 82F

I have used Tetra AquaSafe plus to treat the water.
I have foam that came with the plant that i figured might have some seed material in it so i put some in the filter.

any thoughts?

My tank was like yours when I first started out, took forever and seemed to stall before it could get cycled. It was quite frustrating. I finally got impatient and decided to try one one of those bacteria in a bottle products. After some extensive research, I got Tetra SafeStart and added it to my tank. Next day or two, I checked the parameters and viola, insta-cycle! If you decide to go with one of those bac in a bottle, I 'd only recommend Tetra SafeStart or Dr Tim's Aquatics One and Only. They're the only 2 (that i know of) that contain the right combination of bio-spira nitrifying bacteria strains. You already have a good source of ammonia, all you need is a jump-start on the ben. bac. department. Either way, good luck!

 

[Iodizedfate]

Unfortunately I don't have an ACE in the area, there was one but it closed almost the week before I started the tank. I would have bought from amazon but it always seemed like a ridiculous amount of ammonia just to start a 10 gallon tank. If I don't see anything in the next week or so I'm going to try something else. Probably the bacteria in a bottle.

 

[librarygirl]

Try this site. It's 2.49 for a small bottle. Ace Ammonia

 

[Iodizedfate]

So after letting it sit for almost 2 months and removing the shrimp i was using to cycle. I finally got some Ace ammonia yesterday and everything seems to be good. I tested after adding the ammonia and it looks like the tank cycled while I was waiting for it. Everything should be good to go soon (couple weeks maybe??? *crosses fingers*)