Cycling too slow ?

[linegirl]

Hi everyone,



this is my first post and I hope I will find some friendly advice here.



I have bought my first fishtank ( 20 gallon ) about 6 weeks ago and have tried to cycle it ever since.



I have in it: gravel

plastic plants ( aquarium safe )

1 fake rock ornament ( aquarium safe )

1 small thermometer ( manual )

1 underwater heater ( set to 82 F )

3 zebra danios

1 TOP FIN 20 Powerfilter



I feed my zebras once every evening ( mostly TOP FIN tropical flakes, occasionally TETRA freeze-dried bloodworms or OMEGA ONE freeze-dried brine shrimp ), do water tests every 2 days ( with Jungle Quick Dip strips for Ammonia and the 6-in-1 strip ) and have been doing 10 % water changes every saturday ( treat tap water with TOP FIN Water conditioner ). All this was recommended by my LFS.



My Ammonia level has been 0.5 from the beginning and has not changed !!!!!! Nitrite and Nitrate are 0, Chlorine = 0, ph = 7,8, hardness about 150. I also have the API Master Test Kit at home but it shows the same results.



My question now is : What can I do to speed up the cycling process ? I have the feeling that because I only have 3 fish in the tank that they are not producing enough ammonia to help the bacteria grow. Should I add more fish ? Should I feed them twice a day instead of once ? Should I stop doing PWCs for a while ? Any advice is greatly appreciated !
One last thing: The fish seem active and healthy, never standing still. And the water which was a little bit milky in the beginning, is nice clear now. The only thing I’ve noticed is some little white fluff on the underside of the heater which is positioned horizontal under the filter.
Thanks so much for your help !

 

[jsoong]

The 0.5 of ammonia, when is that measured. If it is immediately after a water change, you might be reading the ammonia from the chloramines instead. <That is the disinfectant water co use these days. Broken down by dechlor & bound, but some test kit will read that as low level of ammonia.>

The nitrites & nitrates, is that from the stripes? The liquid kits will be much more reliable.

If you truly are not getting an ammonia peak, and has zero nitrites & nitrates, then you can try feeding the fish more. <One way of fishless cycling is to just throw in fish food & let it rot.> See if you can get the ammonia up to 1 or so. <Yes that will be stressful for the fish ... but sometimes the bacteria will not grow without a bit of a spike in ammonia. That is another reason to cycle without fish, it allows you to push the ammonia to 4 or so to get a high spike to kick start the cycle.>

If you want to be really gentle on the fish, you can keep the ammonia at the low levels you have, but the cycle will take a long time to establish. Someone here once did an experiment on super low ammonia/nitrite level cycling - eg when dealing with sensitive fish - it took him some 32 weeks to get the cycle done!>

 

[linegirl]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The 0.5 ammonia is the same every time I test. Water changes don't make it fluctuate at all. I was just following the instructions that my LFS gave me as I am a total newbie. It's just that my common sense tells me ( and after a lot of online research ) that I should have higher numbers by now. I know zebras are hardy fish - maybe I'll try feeding them twice for a while now.

 

[linegirl]

I actually WANT the peak , rather sooner than later - just to know that I'm on the right track !

I have used the API Master Test Kit a couple times as back-up but the results were the same. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates matched the same numbers as on the strips.

 

[jsoong]

To eliminate a test kit problem, try testing tap water + dechlorinator <before you add it to the tank> & see what you get. You might also want to test distilled water to make sure your test kit is reading zero accurately.

I agree with trying to increase feeding. You should see the ammonia increasing over the week before a water change. If not, then it is possible that your test kits are not registering nitrite of nitrates & you might have to validate those tests. But for now, it would be simplest to make sure that ammonia is being read correctly, before getting too deep into other possibilities.

 

[linegirl]

Thanks for the tip. Okay, so I took 4 l of tap water and put 1,2 ml dechlorinator in. Then I tested the water with the ammonia stip - guess what - it showed 0.5. Then I did the other strip ( 6-in-1 ) which included nitrite and nitrate - guess what - result number : both 0 !
Then I took the liquid test kit and repeated all the tests for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate - guess what - ALL OF THEM WITH THE SAME RESULT ( ammonia 0.5, nitrite and nitrate 0 ) !
Does that mean now that both of my test kits are not working ?

I don't have any destilled water at home but I could get out tomorrow and pick some up at the grocery store and then repeat the testing.

In the meantime, I fed my fish this morning. You should have seen them - they were quite confused and didn't quite turn into the piranhas that they always become at their nighttime feeding. But they ate in a nice manner - I guess they will just have to get used to the new schedule. Tonight they were back to their usual selves ( I assume it also has to do with the fact that I have the tanklight off during the day and they probably know by now when I get home in the evening and turn the light on that it is " dinnertime " soon !

Anyhow, would you recommend buying a new test kit or should I wait one more week ?

 

[jsoong]

Ammonia testing at 0.5 can be a false positive from chloramines.

Chloramines are added by the water co as disinfectant. It is broken down to ammonia & chlorine by the dechlorinator. Both are bound & harmless, but the bound ammonia can confuse the Nessler type ammonia test & give you a low reading like 0.5. In a cycled tank, the bound ammonia should be removed by the biofilter. So if you test the tank water 24 hr after a water change, you should be reading zero.

Before you get a new test kit, try testing distilled water & see if you can read zero. If you still get 0.5 with distilled, then something is wrong with the kits. <Also check the expiry date on the kit ... it may be old ...> I would not be surprised if the test strips had gone bad (they are notorious for being inaccurate), but the API is usually reliable.

To further validate the ammonia test kit, you can make a solution of ammonia (if you have household ammonia lying around). Make up something like a 4 ppm solution & see if your kits can read that. <Household ammonia is usually 4% = 4 g/dl or 40000 ppm. (Read the label for exact concentration.) So you need to dilute that 10000 times, something like 1ml in 10l (2.5 gal)>

To validate the nitrate test, you would need to make a solution of nitrate. Unless you have some nitrate fertilizer lying around it is a bother to find a nitrate source to test with.

Since the fish appears to be healthy & active, there is no harm in waiting a bit longer.

 

[i3k]

Read the bottle of your water conditioner to see if it removes/converts ammonia.

 

[Ilovemyfishies]

I feel your pain. My 5 gallon has cycled very quickly. I'm guessing it's due to the amount of little fishies I have in there. There may be a lot, but they all have plenty of room to swim around and chase each other. My 60 gallon is taking FOREVER!!! It has been set up for 1 month already. I think my problem is I was using Ammonia/Carbon filter media. I didn't realize that was removing the ammonia. Since I have 3 little poop machines (goldfish) in there, I'm hoping now it will start to cycle. I've also added Seachems Stability daily, as I've been reading that helps cycle the tank. Maybe you should try that as well. Good luck and enjoy the Dannios. Once the tank is cycled you may want to get some GloFish. They are Dannios and they are so super cute and lots of fun to watch.