Fishless cycle - ammonia not dropping

[jlk]

Return the product. I am honestly not sure why they sold you it. Its a ph balancer/buffer that also works as a water conditioner. You have prime for water conditioning and your ph is not an issue here. A decent lfs with a sw section would carry either of these products as well as online. Theres probably a few other brands that carry a similar product but I am not familiar with all of the sw brands beyond Seachem & Kents. I think Instant Ocean has a marine stabilizer formula that works in a similar fashion.

 

[gtincubus]

Yeah, that's kinda what I thought. It wasn't my normal store, just a place near my work, and I honestly didn't get the impression they knew what they were talking about.

My ammonia actually looked like its dropping (looked like 1ppm to me) when I got home though (!!!). I'm going to test again in a bit to verify before I add any more. Hopefully I'm not hallucinating out of frustration!

 

[jlk]

Wait until your ammonia drops down to .25 or zero before adding some more.

 

[gtincubus]

Holding this morning at ammonia 1ppm, nitrites 0. Will wait to add ammonia until it has dropped more.

 

[gtincubus]

Looked like .5 ammonia this morning. I plan to dose it back up tonight. Still 0 nitrites...shouldn't I be seeing at least some by now if the ammonia is dropping?

 

[jlk]

Have you checked to see if your nitrates have increased at all?

 

[gtincubus]

Nitrates look like 10-20ppm. I added 2ml of ammonia.

I also added a double dose of Prime last night and added Replenish as well per the earlier suggestions. Should I need to add more of that in the future (outside of water changes) or is that one dose good for now?

 

[jlk]

Your one dose should be good for now. Have your nitrates increased or is this what is normally in your tap?

 

[gtincubus]

That's up, my tap is 0 nitrates.

 

[jlk]

Thats why your not seeing nitrites- they are being converted which is great news!!!

 

[gtincubus]

Awesome! So at this point I'm just keeping an eye on the ammonia and dosing it back up to 2-3ppm whenever it drops below 0.5ppm, right? And once it processes it all down in about 12 hours I'm good to go?

 

[jlk]

Yep, except no need to check/dose at 12hrs- save yourself the tests for future use! Once your tank is steadily processing 2-4ppm of ammonia fully to nitrate in a 24hr period, your good to go!

 

[gtincubus]

So I thought I was on the path to cycling, ammonia started dropping slowly but regularly (finally), nitrites went up, nitrates went up. The ammonia seems to be processing down in about 3 days and I've been replacing it when I've seen it hit less than 0.5ppm. But here's the thing - it's not speeding up at all (actually took 4 days this last time to process down). Is this normal?

Also, last night my nitrites were at the very top end of the scale and this morning they were at 0. Nitrates are above 80ppm but not quite to the top of the API scale yet. I know it's good that my nitrites processed all the way down and have been replaced by nitrates, but I still had ammonia in my tank (this was almost at the end of the 4 day ammonia removal cycle mentioned above). Should it still be taking so long for the ammonia to be removed? Seems like that should be going faster now and I should be waiting for the nitrites to also be removed in <24 hours so I can call the tank cycled and get some fish finally!

 

[jlk]

Sounds like you may be due for a water change. Has your ph been staying stable or is it starting to drop slightly?

 

[gtincubus]

Oh no, I hadn't been testing the pH! It's completely bottomed out, reading as 6 on the API scale. What should I do???

I thought you were supposed to avoid doing water changes during cycling so I haven't done any since the last time I posted and I did the huge 90% change/reboot.

 

[gtincubus]

This tank is going to be the death of me. Going to have to do some quick thinking when my son asks why Santa didn't bring him any fish...luckily he's only two, so it shouldn't be too tough to come up with something that'll satisfy him.

 

[jlk]

If your ph is 6, then thats the reason for your tank stall. If you havent done a water change yet, its time for a big one to restore your buffers. Then add @2ppm of ammonia & lets see how things look in 24hrs. Make sure you keep a close eye on your ph (daily) because as your tank revs up processing everything, your ph may drop again.

 

[gtincubus]

Have I killed all of the bacteria I've built up so far (i.e. will I be starting over)? :/

 

[gtincubus]

Also, if the pH drops again (obviously less than it did this time) I should do a PWC?

 

[jlk]

No, your not starting over but they have taken a bit of a hit from the acidic environment. They should recover pretty quickly! Keeping an eye on the ph will let you catch this early if it happens again- water change if you notice the ph start to drop. Let us know how things look in 24hrs!