5 weeks ammonia 8ppm

[ComeFullCycle]

Hello grandmasters, I am having alot of trouble cycling my 29 gallon tank would really appreciate some advice / direction . Here's what has happened in my tank since setup .

filled tank and added a piece of madrone and some type of moss also a few flakes of food . I knew the cycle took a while so I waited 3 weeks to order test kit .
Test kit comes in and ph is 7.4 ammonia is at 8ppm and my nitrites non existant nitrates at 20ppm. I wasn't sure why my ammonia was so high and nitrites weren't showing after so long , so I decided to borrow and filthy sponge filer from my neighbors tank and shook it out in the tank and set it up ......a week later still no change . What am I doing wrong ? Have a fluval 307 on the way will that help ?

 

[Flyfisher]

A couple of things I can help you with ComeFullCycle. First you need to check that you have no nitrates in your tap water?
If the tap water has no nitrates then the rest will make sense.
One can’t have the bacteria that poop nitrates with the bacteria that poop nitrites. Don’t worry about never seeing any nitrites in a test as it’s all being eaten.You should never see nitrites again.
8 ppm is to high for ammonia, I believe it stalls the cycle before it’s that high? I don’t remember I think it’s 4 ppm as a maximum?A partial water change will lower the ammonia.

Adding another filter will only provide more possible homes for bacteria. But in truth each tank only needs enough bacteria for the daily poop load.On it’s own a new filter does nothing.

 

[1midniterider]

The used filter should have placed in the fluval. The beneficial bacteria grows on the many surfaces of your tank and the filter media within the filter. The water column holds very little.

As FlyFisher said ammonia at 8ppm is very high and it will stall the cycle. So perform a 50% pwc to get the ammonia down to 4ppm. I suspect the ammonia may actually be higher than 8ppm. To verify, when you pull your water sample, dilute it with equal parts of tap water and then test. If it is still very high, you will need to do a larger water change. 8ppm is the maximum the test kits will typically detect.