sunsetshark
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2022
- Messages
- 1
I’m at the end of week 8 of cycling my 20 gal tank for an axolotl. I used seeded ceramic rings from my established betta tank. And my tank still isn’t cycled.
I started with dosing 4ppm ammonia (Dr. Tim’s) and checked the parameters just about every day. After a week or so, I saw a rise in nitrites and nitrates, but the ammonia never went down. I waited 7 weeks for any change and there was still no change in ammonia. After talking around, I decided to do a 50% water change to get the ammonia lower. After that, it’s been around 0.5-1ppm and I saw nitrite go from 0.25 to >5ppm within the days after the water change. It’s been a week now since the 50% water change and ammonia and nitrite both still haven’t budged at all (other than maybe nitrite going up? Not sure how to tell)
I’m not really understanding what I did wrong/why the cycle isn’t complete after 8 weeks. (I don’t mind waiting more, just worried I did something wrong since I’ve found nothing online about cycles taking longer than 8 weeks) Am I basically starting the timer over now that I’m seeing a bigger nitrite spike? Any idea how long it’ll take for the ammonia and nitrite to go down from this point? I have 2 filters (sponge and HOB) and plenty of ceramic rings for bacteria to grow on. (No substrate since the future axolotl will not be big enough yet) I’m at a loss. Any advice?
Parameters:
0.5-1.0ppm ammonia
5+ppm nitrite (not sure quite how high it is)
40ppm nitrate (color is hard to differentiate, might be 40-80)
7.6 pH
I started with dosing 4ppm ammonia (Dr. Tim’s) and checked the parameters just about every day. After a week or so, I saw a rise in nitrites and nitrates, but the ammonia never went down. I waited 7 weeks for any change and there was still no change in ammonia. After talking around, I decided to do a 50% water change to get the ammonia lower. After that, it’s been around 0.5-1ppm and I saw nitrite go from 0.25 to >5ppm within the days after the water change. It’s been a week now since the 50% water change and ammonia and nitrite both still haven’t budged at all (other than maybe nitrite going up? Not sure how to tell)
I’m not really understanding what I did wrong/why the cycle isn’t complete after 8 weeks. (I don’t mind waiting more, just worried I did something wrong since I’ve found nothing online about cycles taking longer than 8 weeks) Am I basically starting the timer over now that I’m seeing a bigger nitrite spike? Any idea how long it’ll take for the ammonia and nitrite to go down from this point? I have 2 filters (sponge and HOB) and plenty of ceramic rings for bacteria to grow on. (No substrate since the future axolotl will not be big enough yet) I’m at a loss. Any advice?
Parameters:
0.5-1.0ppm ammonia
5+ppm nitrite (not sure quite how high it is)
40ppm nitrate (color is hard to differentiate, might be 40-80)
7.6 pH