tak cycling

[Mercury64]

Hi all, you will remember I had a problem with my tank after upgrading from hang on filters to a wet and dry
my tank was not cycling, in fact it was stuck in limbo, for almost two months my ammonia read .25 but no nitrites what so ever
I got to the point where I decided to add this chemical (all natural) called stablizer by sea chem which is just a bunch of different tapes of bacteria ,believe me it works, I cycled a 250 gal tank with this stuff in 7 days, no lie
Anyway not even this stuff worked which I found strange, I started to wonder what was going on, i'm not missing anyone so theres nothing dead causing these readings, the fact of the matter was something was not alowing my tank to cycle ,something was not allowing my ammonia or nitrtites to peak
The more I thought about it I started to think what is different from the last time I had to cyle and now and it hit me, new bacteria can not form and promote with a uv light as it distoys it before it has a chance to work ,I unpluged my light and now i'm getting the type of readings one would expect for a tank that is cycling
Just thought I would shae that with you all

 

[TCTFish]

Very good experience to share. UV sterilizers are indiscriminate of the bacteria they kill which incudes the good stuff. UV sterilizers IMO, should only be thought of from those who have very large systems with a high turnover of livestock such as wholesale aquarium livestock warehouses and retailers like your LFS where bacterial diseases and parasites are mostly encountered.

 

[Mercury64]

I bought the uv only becaue I do an all tang tank and there prown to ich, im just wondering once my tank cycles if I will be able to use it ,I hope so, paid allot of money for this light

 

[Phyl]

I waited until my tank was cycled to start up my UV (my LFS recommended that because of the bacteria die off that would happen in the UV stalling the cycle). You won't have any problem starting that back up after you've gotten your tank cycled again!

Good luck. Glad to hear that you found the source of your problem!

 

[JamesR]

Agreed, i love mine. Just make sure the tank is cycled before pluging it in.

Jim

 

[Mercury64]

thanks all, I wish one of these so called fish experts at the store that I bought it from would of thought of mentioning this to me but then again it seesms like theres allot of fish stores with people that don't know a whole lot