Nightmare Fishless Cycle

[sc0wll]

Hey folks–need some help with my nightmarish fishless cycle!

I've got a 20G tank that I've been cycling since August. On October 15th, after getting SO CLOSE with ammonia disappearing overnight, >5.0 nitrItes, and >160 nitrAtes, my cycle crashed. NitrAtes completely disappeared, and ammonia stopped disappearing overnight.

I did a 75% water change after being told my high nitrItes crashed the cycle. I got them back down & started over, but they very quickly jumped back to >5.0ppm.

I've been stuck at 0 ammonia (dosing 2.0ppm every other day), >5.0 nitrItes, and 5.0 nitrAtes for 8 weeks.

My pH is 8.0, my temp is 76°F (this will be an axolotl tank, so I'm using a temporary heater), I'm using Dr. Timm's ammonia & API freshwater master kit.

Am I headed towards another crashed cycle? Why is it taking this long? Please help, I'm really defeated and confused.

[m.j.gomez]

Originally Posted by sc0wll

Hey folks–need some help with my nightmarish fishless cycle!

I've got a 20G tank that I've been cycling since August. On October 15th, after getting SO CLOSE with ammonia disappearing overnight, >5.0 nitrItes, and >160 nitrAtes, my cycle crashed. NitrAtes completely disappeared, and ammonia stopped disappearing overnight.

I did a 75% water change after being told my high nitrItes crashed the cycle. I got them back down & started over, but they very quickly jumped back to >5.0ppm.

I've been stuck at 0 ammonia (dosing 2.0ppm every other day), >5.0 nitrItes, and 5.0 nitrAtes for 8 weeks.

My pH is 8.0, my temp is 76°F (this will be an axolotl tank, so I'm using a temporary heater), I'm using Dr. Timm's ammonia & API freshwater master kit.

Am I headed towards another crashed cycle? Why is it taking this long? Please help, I'm really defeated and confused.

Hello, nitrites over 2ppm will stall a cycle because they are very toxic. You want to keep dosing your ammonia but when nitrites reach 2 do a 50% water change & bring them down to 1ppm. This should break the stall. Hope this helps!!!!!

[fishwonder]

Myth High Nitrite Inhibits Growth

Sorry.. If nitrite levels are over 9 ppm in a cycling aquarium the beneficial bacterial growth is inhibited

Another myth about beneficial bacteria is that their growth is inhibited by nitrite levels over 9 ppm. This myth came about by a misunderstanding of the term “preservative”. Sodium nitrite is added to some foods (I.e. salami and pepperoni) as a “preservative” at a level of 9 ppm. Someone in the distant past saw this and assumed the sodium nitrite stopped bacterial growth.

Edit- If one has amounts of ammonia or nitrite one probably does not have adequate biofiltration in the aquarium. And if one doesn’t have adequate biofiltration one will probably have high bacterial counts in the water. And high bacterial counts (i.e. “dull” or cloudy water) are very detrimental to the long term health of the fish.

Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and chlorine information here.