eco23
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ruth87 said:nop no way anythin else got in there and i dont have any where i can get seeded materiial from as my local pet place doesnt even support fishless cycling as a viable method of setting up a tank. the only other thing iv noticed is sorta like a brown residue which is on one of my ornaments, the top part of my air tube and the plastic parts of the heater, cud tht be anything funny?
That's probably just diatoms which are normal with a newly set up tank. They'll take over the tank, you'll want to throw your aquarium out the window because they're so ugly, and then they'll magically disappear about a month later.
I don't know the AA rules on advertising (so sorry to any mods or admins who see this), but this is the site that sells the seeded sponges-
http://www.angelsplus.com/FiltersSponge.htm
Like I said, I've heard good things and it's worth a shot. Just make sure it's one of the "active" sponges if you get one.
Some people have also had good luck getting things started by adding a bunch of plants. You can buy really cheap, almost impossible to kill plants like Anacharis. If they come out of an established tank at the lfs, they'll contain plenty of beneficial bacteria which can be like seeded media. Lots of plants like Anacharis can simply be floated on top of the water if you don't want to plant them in the substrate. You can just toss them out when the cycle is complete if you don't want to keep them.
Unfortunately there's not a whole lot else I can tell you to do at this point. The most I can offer is to try to rule out possibilities why things aren't moving, but since I revised the guide last week (it's an updated version if you didn't see), pretty much everything is included. As long as all the steps are followed and there's not some other crazy variable (like the soap idea), pH levels arent at some extreme range, etc...it's really hard to say what the issue is without actually being there. Some tanks seem to have a mind of their own, but there's always a cause when things don't go according to plan.
Another big pwc with a healthy dose of quality dechlorinator, as many hardy plants as you can buy, and maybe one of those sponges is your best bet at this point.