Ammonia levels not dropping!!

[Liam1]

Hi there, I wonder if anyone could help as I am new to fish keeping... I have recently purchased a 60l tank and read up about about cycling and decided to cycle with pure ammonia, so I set the tank up, with heater in mid 80's, bubble wand, media, filter going, and added some prime to the water when I filled it up... Added pure ammonia to dose it up to 4ppm, kept testing the waters everyday and no change in the ammonia levels, after about day 7, I tested for nitrite and it showed levels of 0.25ppm, but ammonia still stayed the same and hadn't dropped.. I left it, test again the next day, exactly the same... Tested again on day 9 and ammonia levels still exactly the same, not dropped from 4ppm but the nitrite is at about 5.0ppm maybe higher, and tested for nitrate and that is at about 100ppm...

What is going on? Shouldn't the ammonia be dropping before the nitrite and nitrate are rising this much? Am I doing something wrong? Please help, I wanna make sure my tank is safe for when I do eventually add fish... Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! Liam.

 

[Yorg]

Hi Liam:

No, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. It's not uncommon to get some weird numbers at this early stage in your cycle. You have a good temp and good aeration for fostering the growth of the nitrifying bacteria. Have you tested your ph?

Since you're only on day 9, I'd suggest that you do a 20-25% water change and see if it dilutes your ammonia down to about 2ppm. If it does, leave it there and keep testing. If after a few more days your nitrite and nitrate are still climbing but the ammonia won't budge, consider adding a bacterial product like Tetra SafeStart to the tank. An ammonia of 2ppm won't be toxic to the bacteria, and it could be enough to settle things down so that you see the much-anticipated dropping ammonia & nitrite/climbing nitrate pattern.

That said, if you leave it as is it will eventually cycle. The SafeStart would just be a kind of kick to what's already in progress.

-Yorg

Hi there, I wonder if anyone could help as I am new to fish keeping... I have recently purchased a 60l tank and read up about about cycling and decided to cycle with pure ammonia, so I set the tank up, with heater in mid 80's, bubble wand, media, filter going, and added some prime to the water when I filled it up... Added pure ammonia to dose it up to 4ppm, kept testing the waters everyday and no change in the ammonia levels, after about day 7, I tested for nitrite and it showed levels of 0.25ppm, but ammonia still stayed the same and hadn't dropped.. I left it, test again the next day, exactly the same... Tested again on day 9 and ammonia levels still exactly the same, not dropped from 4ppm but the nitrite is at about 5.0ppm maybe higher, and tested for nitrate and that is at about 100ppm...

What is going on? Shouldn't the ammonia be dropping before the nitrite and nitrate are rising this much? Am I doing something wrong? Please help, I wanna make sure my tank is safe for when I do eventually add fish... Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! Liam.

 

[ImACoolguy]

LFS usually sell cycled media. That's the best kick start you can get.


Caleb

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