13 Days And No Drop - Should I Be Worried?

[LeeAberdeen]

As the title says, I'm 13 days into my cycle and, although nitrites are just about beginning to show, the ammonia's sticking in the 3.5ppm-4ppm range, unchanging since day three? I wouldn't be worried, but that differs markedly from the cycle shown in the sticky on fishless cycling on this site.  I did a 25% water change the other day and still no drop.
 
Originally I put in the amount of ammonia for 5ppm because, unless you remember to change it on the ammonia calculator suggested on here, that's the reading it gives you, not the 3ppm recommended on the sticky. Maybe starting with the higher amount of ammonia would explain it and I just need to be more patient?
 
I have had lots of green algae on the glass and snails have started to appear, which would seem to indicate the water's pretty healthy with no fundamental problems. Just wondered if I'd overlooked anything because, checking other sites, I'm doing some things other people aren't. For instance, I do have some live plants in there, and have been keeping the lights on for about eight hours for them. Would that affect things? Also, my only oxygen supply is from a powerful filter moving the water around, so is that enough to feed the bacteria? Also, the tank is in direct sunlight (such as you get in northern Scotland, anyway) because there's nowhere else for it to go, and maybe that has an impact?
 
My test kits are all in date, the tank's at 80 degrees, my ph is 7.5 and gh and kh about 3.5. In theory, it all sounds fine...
 
Any help or reassurance much appreciated.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

5 ppm is too much, the calculator should be changed. It is especially too much with live plants present. Right now your best thing is growing algae. Especially with that ammonia level, just a few plants and lots of light. What plant do you have?
 
The sticky is designed for an unplanted tank. Some plants would be fine but as you up the plant load the method of rounding out the cycle is different.
 
The thing to understand is that plants take up ammonium (part of ammonia). But they use it and  do not create any nitrite or nitrate. Bacteria do the two step- ammonia-->nitrite-->nitrate. But plants will also use nitrate. So as you can see the addition of plants changes things. Dosing ammonia  to 5 ppm usually makes a lot of problems in planted tanks.
 
Normally what I would have suggested is that you dose ammonia to 2 or 3 ppm and test in 24. That will show you how much ammonia the plants are using. At that point one can determine the proper ammonia dose that might be needed to make a tank safe fora full fish load.
 
Finally, if you are testing properly, there is simply no way for a 25% water change not to have an effect on levels. it should reduce them by a similar %. This tells me something is not right here. Either you are testing wrong or you have actually dose more than 5 ppm. AT 6.4 ppm you are actually killing a cycle. Only plants would be at work. based on your description you have minimal plants, so the ammonia is not dropping. but the 25% wc part should still have mattered.
 
 
The best suggestion I can offer is for you to do a big water change, maybe two to get the levels as close to 0/0 as you can and then redose to 3 ppm using 85% of the tank volume in the calculation. Be sure you enter the % strength of the ammonia you have. This will rest things. Then test in 24 hours (both for ammonia and nitrite) and report the results here, I would also suggest leaving the lights off until you see ammonia levels dropping. Plants can handle no light a lot better than algae can. Normally, I suggest one plant a tank and let the plants settle in for 10-14 days before starting any needed fishless cycling part. This make them better able to do without light for a bit. You really only want the lights off when ammonia levels are still a bit high. As they drop, the lights can come back on until your next dose. What you may need to be avoiding is having the lights on for those days where ammonia levels are the highest.

 

[LeeAberdeen]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, 5ppm clearly is too much - not sure why that would be the default setting on the calculator when the write-up suggests much lower? I'm just wondering if it'll come down but take longer, which wouldn't be a problem because I'm in no rush to add fish.
 
The plants are aponogoten crispus, rotala wallichii and ceratopteris thalictroides. They're all flourishing, growing ridiculously fast with all the light they've been getting. There's only one of each, other than the three aponogoten crispus, so I'm not exactly overloaded with plants. To be honest, as I'm getting cichlids which are likely to dig them up anyway, I'm happy to go without the live plants if it's going to make things easier.
 
Not sure about the testing becuase the colour system all seems a bit imprecise. I'm green colour blind too, which doesn't help. There might have been a slight drop, but nothing like the 25% you say a water change of that size should produce. I definitely didn't dose more than 5ppm, I'm sure of that.
 
I might wait until the next test in three days' time and then, if nothing's changed, do the big water change you suggested - 50% should produce some change, surely.
 
Thanks for taking the time to write all that, it's much appreciated.