Ammomia not going down

[picture_117]

I've been cycling since last sunday with seeded material. The ammonia hasn't changed a bit since then, I've done two PWC and even that hasn't phased it. am I not being patient or is something wrong? I remember my last tank was quicker than that.

 

[tarpon]

Don't do pwcs while cycling. And test your tap water for ammonia. And also what was the seeded material? Did it dry out at any point?

 

[picture_117]

Tap water has 1 ppm ammonia in it.
I moved over my filter cartridges and some DW and some of the sand. They were all done within seconds, tanks are right next to each other.

 

[tarpon]

Hmm that is strange.
And wow that's a massive amount of ammonia! Id definately use prime to treat it so its non toxic until the biofilter breaks it down. When you have fish at least.

 

[picture_117]

Yeah that's what I do with my other tank, I test it every week and always shows 0 ppm so I guess it works!

But with my cycling tank it seems like the seeded material didn't even make a difference, hasn't moved from about 4-5 ppm.

 

[tarpon]

4-5 ppm is a lot more ammonia than is produced by your average fish stock. My guess is that the bacteria colony wasn't built up enough to convert that much. Bc bacteria will grow based on how much ammonia there is to sustain it as I understand it.

 

[picture_117]

So what should I do? Keep waiting to see if it goes down?

 

[tarpon]

Yeah that's what id do. You dosed ammonia right? Normally if people move complete filters over they go ahead and add fish and monitor the levels for a while.

 

[picture_117]

Yeah I filled up the tank and dosed the ammonia

 

[tarpon]

Yeah id just wait. It'll probably cycle faster than with no media.

 

[picture_117]

Okay thanks I'll see what happens.