Azure Lord
Aquarium Advice Freak
Day 20- ammonia has not dropped one bit since i started it. I know i didnt use any seeding media...but what gives?
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
When ammonia (or nitrites) are too high, it can interfere with a cycle. It doesn't need to be that high. Are you adding ammonia everyday?
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Hmm. For some reason my cycle completed in around 2 weeks with a ph of around 6.0 Maybe I was just an odd ball. Anyway, I'm sure your words are based on the experiences of your whole life in fish keeping.In a natural setup, I've seen it take up to 2- 3 months or longer for a tank to fully cycle. There are many variables, i.e. temperature, ammonia source, PH, oxygen level, all these effect how fast nitrifying bacteria grow. In lower PH water ( under 7.0) nitrifying bacteria grow extremely slow so if possible, raise the PH to above 7.0 and even as high as 8.0. Temp: if yours is under 78-80 degrees, you may want to warm your tank to this or a little higher even to help speed up bacteria production. O2, make sure you have good bubbling going on somewhere in the system.
Try these and see if that helps. If all else fails, some material from an established tank should kick start the process a bit faster.
Hope this helps
I've been hearing that information too, but I've yet to find any proof. I used 4ppm in my tank (Ace hardware janitorial strength ammonia) and it worked just fine.I've not known that to be true. Can I ask where you got this information as it doesn't sound right to me?
I wish this came from a more scientific approach then a company trying to sell a product. What I've been reading lately has been more about the cycle being stalled with an end result of higher ammonia levels but this is due to a lack of area for enough bacteria to grow on to convert the ammonia that's present. So the ammonia didn't cause the stall, lack of bacteria caused the stall.From Dr. Tim's article on fishless cycling:
"The high ammonia or nitrite concentration (which by the way can sometimes occur in the shrimp method) is a problem because high levels of ammonia or nitrite inhibit the nitrifying bacteria. You need to change the water to reduce the ammonia and nitrite to get the cycle going again."
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Hmm. For some reason my cycle completed in around 2 weeks with a ph of around 6.0 Maybe I was just an odd ball. Anyway, I'm sure your words are based on the experiences of your whole life in fish keeping.
I've been hearing that information too, but I've yet to find any proof. I used 4ppm in my tank (Ace hardware janitorial strength ammonia) and it worked just fine.
ps: I never had any nitrites in my cycle. only saw ammo as it went down and nitrate as it came up (same time as ammo went down).. Hmm
The article by Fritz ( in the previous post) may help explain this. At that low of a PH, there were no nitrosomas to convert the ammonium to nitrites. I say ammonium not ammonia because in lower then 7.0 water, ammonia (NH3) is converted to Ammonium ( NH4 ) which is much less toxic to the fish and not much of a concern. I can only surmise that the nitrates you saw either came from the water you used or possibly live plants you may have used? ( Need a lot more info to know for sure, This is just a guess on my part. ) The reduction of the ammonia had to come from some form of filtration you were using(possibly a carbon/ ammonia removing combination product maybe? ) It's just a guess at this point. But the low PH explains a number of things ( at least to me )
The nitrogen cycle is an amazing thing to study. It's effected by so many different things that you can't always pin down a result without a lot of digging. But the answer is there....somewhere...
Hope the is helps