Okay guys, check this out... I'm at wits end. I know I'm new here, but I decided it's finally time to join a community rather than continually google to try and find someone with the exact same problem.
Basically, the short version of this story -- I have a five gallon tank I have been attempting to cycle for three months now. It seemed to be good after three weeks, and gave me two days of perfect readings before I was ultimately forced to add some critters to the tank because they had nowhere else to go... so in went two African Dwarf Frogs, FIVE snails (three mystery, two nerite), and about a dozen shrimp... I didn't have much of a choice, it was a situation where I either put them in there temporarily, or subject them to worse conditions or copper meds.
Needless to say, the cycle crashed. Ammonia readings consistently went off the charts if I were to skip a daily WC, and still remained around 2-4ppm with the changes. For the next 6 weeks, the tank showed these sky high ammonia issues no matter what. 8.0ppm readings constantly. I figured it was overstocking and did my best keeping up with the prime and ammo-lock.
Thankfully, I was able to find homes for three snails, and the shrimp sadly all died out during the Great Nitrite Spike of Last Week Or So, with the exception of 1 particularly hardy amano and 1 cherry shrimp.
I've added seeded media. The past week I've been dosing with seachem stability. I'm running a jebo mini power filter and two sponge filters. Sand substrate. Two aquatic plants from bulbs, and a java moss covered coconut shell... everything should be fine, but I cannot get the darn thing to cycle. Today the Nitrites were sky high again.
Now I would still chalk this up to an increased bioload, but the thing is -- I recently witnessed my niece's tank, a 1 gallon filtered nat geo tank with FIVE snails (3 mystery, 2 nerite) AND a betta, which unbelievably was showing no signs of stress. So I ran a test on the water, and I couldn't believe it... 0s across, except for 20 nitrates. THAT tank is cycled in two months!! How is that even possible, and what is she doing right that I cannot seem to fix??
Do I just keep dosing with stability and using prime treated water for the daily 50%s? Will that bring the Nitrites down now? I just want an end to the poison tank! I've got a lot of previously-sick or hurt Bettas I adopted, 18 to be precise, and they need homes so I'm not giving up... this one was supposed to be for my favorite lil guy, and he's still slumming it in a measly 3g, I think he's starting to doubt that I meant it when I said I was getting him a 5g...
Here she is in all her perpetually-misleading crystal-clear-water-mess:
Basically, the short version of this story -- I have a five gallon tank I have been attempting to cycle for three months now. It seemed to be good after three weeks, and gave me two days of perfect readings before I was ultimately forced to add some critters to the tank because they had nowhere else to go... so in went two African Dwarf Frogs, FIVE snails (three mystery, two nerite), and about a dozen shrimp... I didn't have much of a choice, it was a situation where I either put them in there temporarily, or subject them to worse conditions or copper meds.
Needless to say, the cycle crashed. Ammonia readings consistently went off the charts if I were to skip a daily WC, and still remained around 2-4ppm with the changes. For the next 6 weeks, the tank showed these sky high ammonia issues no matter what. 8.0ppm readings constantly. I figured it was overstocking and did my best keeping up with the prime and ammo-lock.
Thankfully, I was able to find homes for three snails, and the shrimp sadly all died out during the Great Nitrite Spike of Last Week Or So, with the exception of 1 particularly hardy amano and 1 cherry shrimp.
I've added seeded media. The past week I've been dosing with seachem stability. I'm running a jebo mini power filter and two sponge filters. Sand substrate. Two aquatic plants from bulbs, and a java moss covered coconut shell... everything should be fine, but I cannot get the darn thing to cycle. Today the Nitrites were sky high again.
Now I would still chalk this up to an increased bioload, but the thing is -- I recently witnessed my niece's tank, a 1 gallon filtered nat geo tank with FIVE snails (3 mystery, 2 nerite) AND a betta, which unbelievably was showing no signs of stress. So I ran a test on the water, and I couldn't believe it... 0s across, except for 20 nitrates. THAT tank is cycled in two months!! How is that even possible, and what is she doing right that I cannot seem to fix??
Do I just keep dosing with stability and using prime treated water for the daily 50%s? Will that bring the Nitrites down now? I just want an end to the poison tank! I've got a lot of previously-sick or hurt Bettas I adopted, 18 to be precise, and they need homes so I'm not giving up... this one was supposed to be for my favorite lil guy, and he's still slumming it in a measly 3g, I think he's starting to doubt that I meant it when I said I was getting him a 5g...
Here she is in all her perpetually-misleading crystal-clear-water-mess:
