Ask Questions About Cycling

[JayLB]

Hello! I have a ten gallon tank with the intention of getting some tetras, and have already started the cycling process by adding 1/16 of a teaspoon of Fritz's Ammonium Chloride. The water was conditioned with Tetra AquaSafe Plus and I've been testing it with an API Freshwater Master Kit. It has been about four weeks with my ammonium levels dropping ( about 1.0ppm now, was previously 2.0ppm), but no sign of nitrites or nitrates. Today I noticed some fluffy white stuff on my Java Fern and so I took it out and moved it to a different container. Was it bacteria eating the ammonia? Should I add more ammonia? I have a TopFin Silentstream PF10 Power Filter and the tank it almost always at 78 degrees Fahrenheit. The pH is always about 7.5, and the light is left on 24/7.

What I’ve learned from some awesome people on here, is that many water conditioners affect the ammonia during a Fishless cycle, therein making it an ineffective source of food for nitrifying bacteria. Did you add any live bacteria? Or are you using old media?

 

[strangeworld2002]

Been trying to cycle an aquarium for 4-5 weeks now with no results, ammonia is still reading at around 1ppm, no nitrites or nitrates. Tank has some plants and has been treated with Prime and has had a full bottle of Seachem Stability over a 4 week period and I bought some Fluval Cycle too both have done nothing. There are currently 2 guppies in the tank, it was 4 but I have lost a couple. Having to do between 25 and 50% water changes weekly to keep the ammonia level down now as no signs of any bacterial growth. I understand that Nitrite may not be present in a planted aquarium but the ammonia although ammonium in such a low PH just keeps going up and up and will easily be in the 4ppm range when I do the water change.

The constant is that after water changes the PH goes down to 6 within 24 hours and stays there although as I am testing with the API the lowest reading it can give is 6 so it could be lower.

The tap water is soft with an Alkalinity as CaCO3 reading averaging 52.6.

I know BB won't colonize in PH that low so I am stuck unless I raise the PH and keep it there while the cycle finishes, my question is once I have BB in the tank is it OK to have a lower PH. Is it just for growing it that low PH is an issue but once its established it will still work or will it die off again?

I just feel like I'm in a position of either finding a way to keep the PH up or quitting the hobby that I only just got back into because the water in my area is useless for being an aquarist.

 

[Byron]

Been trying to cycle an aquarium for 4-5 weeks now with no results, ammonia is still reading at around 1ppm, no nitrites or nitrates. Tank has some plants and has been treated with Prime and has had a full bottle of Seachem Stability over a 4 week period and I bought some Fluval Cycle too both have done nothing. There are currently 2 guppies in the tank, it was 4 but I have lost a couple. Having to do between 25 and 50% water changes weekly to keep the ammonia level down now as no signs of any bacterial growth. I understand that Nitrite may not be present in a planted aquarium but the ammonia although ammonium in such a low PH just keeps going up and up and will easily be in the 4ppm range when I do the water change.

The constant is that after water changes the PH goes down to 6 within 24 hours and stays there although as I am testing with the API the lowest reading it can give is 6 so it could be lower.

The tap water is soft with an Alkalinity as CaCO3 reading averaging 52.6.

I know BB won't colonize in PH that low so I am stuck unless I raise the PH and keep it there while the cycle finishes, my question is once I have BB in the tank is it OK to have a lower PH. Is it just for growing it that low PH is an issue but once its established it will still work or will it die off again?

I just feel like I'm in a position of either finding a way to keep the PH up or quitting the hobby that I only just got back into because the water in my area is useless for being an aquarist.

Are you adding "ammonia" now, or not?

Edit. I just spotted your other thread and realized you are dealing with these issues in it for some time now. It is best not to have more than one thread on an issue, as members can see all posts and it saves endless repetition.

 

[strangeworld2002]

Are you adding "ammonia" now, or not?

Edit. I just spotted your other thread and realized you are dealing with these issues in it for some time now. It is best not to have more than one thread on an issue, as members can see all posts and it saves endless repetition.

Apologies I'll post back in the other.

 

[vegas2k]

Hey all, not new to fish keeping, new to these forums. I started a project to help my fellow fish keepers, new and established, in my town. I saw that some people on etsy and otherwise sell and mail out cycled sponge filter media. I am taking that idea to help people in my town, so I took a small aquarium and a large HOB filter I have laying around and tossed in many mesh bags of ceramic rings, and am doing the ammonia cycling on them. The idea is, locals can trade their new rings from the fish store to me for the same amount of rings that have been cycled.

I am wondering, if having a bag of media in the HOB amongst other mature cycled media will help grow all the nitrifying bacteria on the new media more quickly, or if that media will need the usual 4-6 weeks to fully mature, assuming I keep a constant heavy supply of ammonia in the tank. Trying to get an idea of how many people I can serve. And I wonder if putting a whole lot of rings into the tank itself will cycle that media as well as the media in the HOB. I would just be labeling each media bag so I know how long it's been in the tank. thanks in advance!

 

[Umbrage]

Hello, completely new to fishkeeping as well as these forums. I am having trouble with a fish-in cycle and am hoping I can finally get help sleuthing out my issues. Forgive the long post, I want to be thorough.

TL;DR - 20g fish-in cycle won't start cycle after months with shrimp & fish

Apologies for trying to cycle w/ critters inside the aquarium; this is my first aquarium and I thought I was cycled but I don't believe I am. Some context:

1. Timeline - In total, I've had living things inside this aquarium for four months, but I don't believe it's ever actually been cycled. About a month in two killifish (died), two months in neocaradina shrimp (2 deaths total), three months in 8 endler.
2. Tank - 20 gallon UNS all-in-one. It's got three rear chambers with a sponge filter pulling water through these donut-looking filter medium in the middle chamber that then gets pumped back in the third chamber via a power head.
3. Plants - It's a planted with amazon sword, java fern and tons of java moss. I have not clipped the moss so there is a lot. Substrate is UNS controsoil. Has some very sporadic montecarlo. A couple leaves of the sword died off but new ones have appeared. I did buy a bunch of guppy grass that seemingly all died off. Overall the remaining plants appear to be in great shape.
4. Inhabitants - Started one month in with 2 lantern killifish and 8 NCshrimp; the killifish both died while the shrimp seemingly flourished as I have many now. It now has shrimp and 8 endlers; 2 of them for five weeks and the remaining 6 for 3 weeks. I believe the endlers are showing signs of gil burn as there is pink around some of the females' gils.
5. Water Source - I've been using RO water with shrimpy / KH / bacterAE and gotten the parameters below.
6. Misc - I'm using an airstone and injecting 1bubble/s C02. The airstone and CO2 inject site are on the left back side of the tank below the filter intake. The power head out is on the right of tank.
7. Testing Kits - Most of my testing has been with API master test kits; recently I also picked up some stick tests and the seachem total/free ammonia test because I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was going on, but those corroborated the liquid kit.
8. Chemicals - For the last couple weeks due to fear of harming the fish, I've been dosing half a cap of prime every other day.
9. Water changes - I've been doing 10-25% water changes every week or two. I slowed down and started doing prime instead because I was told I was hurting the cycle.
10. When I clean, recently I've vacuumed from the middle chamber - I'm not sure this is correct but it is where the most debris collects. Is this the bacteria that I should leave put?
11. Parameters as of today after a 10% water change -

• ~4PPM total ammonia. It's been steadily increasing over the last several weeks.
• 0 Nitrites
• 0 Nitrates
• 7.4 PH
• 3 KH
• 8 GH
• 300 PPM
• Up until this last week, it was roughly 78%F before I realized I wasn't reading the thermometer correctly. I reduecd it to 74 in the last week.

The weird thing is, I've never seen a non-zero nitrite/nitrate reading, which is the primary reason (along with ammonia > 0 and not dropping) that I believe my tank isn't cycled, along with the deaths of my two killish.

Once I concluded two months in that my tank wasn't cycled I started conditioning the water and tried a variety of quick start products. I've tried Fritz turbo, API quickstart, fritz 700, seachem stability, nothing seems to start the cycle. In the case of fritz I literally used the entire bottles.

What am I doing wrong? How can I troubleshoot this?

 

[DuCoop]

I think my tank is cycling well.
AM Tested at 1ppm Ammonia and .25 nitrite. somewhere between 1 and 5 nitrate
Next day tested at .25 ammonia. and .5 nitrite roughly the same nitrate I added ammonia (fishless fuel) to get it back to 1ppm
Afternoon same day Tested .25 Ammonia and .5 Nitrate with Nitrate up to 5ppm.

At this point do I just keep adding the ammonia to get it to 1ppm until I see both the ammonia and nitrite fall to 0 at the same time?
Some of the plants melted just slightly when I planted them the first day but they are starting to show some signs of growth. and there are lots of little growths on the red root floaters.
Only living thing in there besides the plants are 2 rams horn snails.

Edit: I set up the tank 5 days ago and used the API quick start to get the ball rolling and its 150 Gallon

 

[Essjay]

No. Ammonia is only added at specific times when certain targets have been reached. However, live plants take up ammonia as fertiliser and they don't turn it into nitrite (they turn it into protein) so this changes the way the cycle runs.
Either follow the fishless cycle method and add ammonia as directed

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

Or add no more ammonia and wait until the plants are actively growing - you have posted a photo so compare the plants to this to tell if they are growing - then when there's lots of new growth add fish a few at a time, testing every day to make sure ammonia and nitrite are remaining at zero.

 

[DuCoop]

No. Ammonia is only added at specific times when certain targets have been reached. However, live plants take up ammonia as fertiliser and they don't turn it into nitrite (they turn it into protein) so this changes the way the cycle runs.
Either follow the fishless cycle method and add ammonia as directed

Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!

Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...

www.fishforums.net

Or add no more ammonia and wait until the plants are actively growing - you have posted a photo so compare the plants to this to tell if they are growing - then when there's lots of new growth add fish a few at a time, testing every day to make sure ammonia and nitrite are remaining at zero.

Going back and looking at the photos the plants aren't explosively growing but its clear that all the ones in the front. (can't remember the name of it) have grown at least .5" in the past couple of days. The swords all look healthy and the java's are all standing up straighter than when they first went in. The Cabomba nice bright green leaves at the tips.

Sounds like once the ammonia and Nitrite are gone its very close to being ready for a couple of fish. I was just going to start with either some siamese algae eaters or some corydoras. When saying some fish in a tank this size would 3 of each be fine (knowing that I am going to end up putting about 10 each total in the end?

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. This is an interesting topic. I've always kept larger tanks, so cycling has been very easy. My last tank was 52 gallons and I just set everything up and filled the tank with water treatment and APIs "Quick Start". I added some Guppies and a little later, some Tetras and just changed half the tank water a couple of times a week for the first month. After that, I just changed half the water weekly. I always dosed the Quick Start directly into the tank and just filled it. After a couple of months, I added the rest of fish I wanted and stopped using the Quick Start. I really like having some fish in the tank right away.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[AlexT]

Do I do a water change at this point? Or just leave things as they are?

I'm 5 days into a fishless cycle using Dr Tim's One and Only and his Ammonium Chloride.
I've been following his instructions, by adding ammonia on Days 1 and 3. Do I add more ammonia as per instruction tomorrow (Day 6) even with my Nitrite so high? I guess so, because Dr Tim says to only withhold ammonia if either the ammonia or nitrite hits 5.0 ppm, but I am not that far off getting near to 5.0 ppm on my API colour chart.

Day 1 Ammonia 1.5 to 2.0 ppm
Day 1 Nitrite 0.00 ppm

Day 2 Ammonia 0.5 to 1.0 ppm
Day 2 Nitrite 0.25 to 0.50 ppm

Day 3 Ammonia 3.0 to 4.0 ppm
Day 3 Nitrite 0.50 to 1.0 ppm

Day 4 Ammonia 2.0 to 3.0 ppm
Day 4 Nitrite 3.0 to 4.0 ppm

Day 5 Ammonia 1.0 to 1.5 ppm
Day 5 Nitrite 3.0 to 4.0 ppm
Day 5 pH 7.6 to 8.0 (tap water 7.4 to 7.6), Nitrate 30 to 40 ppm (tap water same)

 

[AlexT]

Do I do a water change at this point? Or just leave things as they are?

I'm 5 days into a fishless cycle using Dr Tim's One and Only and his Ammonium Chloride.
I've been following his instructions, by adding ammonia on Days 1 and 3. Do I add more ammonia as per instruction tomorrow (Day 6) even with my Nitrite so high? I guess so, because Dr Tim says to only withhold ammonia if either the ammonia or nitrite hits 5.0 ppm, but I am not that far off getting near to 5.0 ppm on my API colour chart.

Day 1 Ammonia 1.5 to 2.0 ppm
Day 1 Nitrite 0.00 ppm

Day 2 Ammonia 0.5 to 1.0 ppm
Day 2 Nitrite 0.25 to 0.50 ppm

Day 3 Ammonia 3.0 to 4.0 ppm
Day 3 Nitrite 0.50 to 1.0 ppm

Day 4 Ammonia 2.0 to 3.0 ppm
Day 4 Nitrite 3.0 to 4.0 ppm

Day 5 Ammonia 1.0 to 1.5 ppm
Day 5 Nitrite 3.0 to 4.0 ppm
Day 5 pH 7.6 to 8.0 (tap water 7.4 to 7.6), Nitrate 30 to 40 ppm (tap water same)

I think an error of mine you should know was to introduce some plants on day 2. I only wanted some green in there. I got some plants I planned on throwing away after the cycle, but they are looking good and lush green, and obviously consuming ammonia? Could this be why I am in nitrite hell or am I just inpatient? The plants include fast grower Elodea Densa !!! In life I am never truly able to do something "by the book'

Also, from reading up, if my ammonia level today is below 2.0 ppm which it is, then I MUST add some more ammonia as long as my nitrite is not above 5.0 ppm?

 

[AlexT]

This post relates to my two posts immediately above this. My tap water today is testing right at 0.25 Nitrite on my API colour chart. I don't think Thames Water are cycling their drinking water very well

Although in (very reluctant fairness) on their water quality report for the year 2022 they are stating the following for nitrite readings:

Regulatory limit: 0.50
Lowest reading: 0.017
Mean reading: 0.089
Highest reading: 0.247

 

[Oscar Betta]

I am 10 days into a fishless cycle for my 5 gallon tank. I added 2 ppm ammonia on the first day and dosed Seachem Stability for 7 days. I've been doing daily tests and my ammonia is now at about 1 ppm. Still no nitrites. I just wanted to confirm that I don't need to do anything else at the time (such as add ammonia)? I was hoping the nitrites would appear after a week, but I've heard it can take longer. I have fake, silk plants if that matters.

 

[MaloK]

Generally, you can expect a cycling period of 4-6 weeks. However, it might be shorter with Stability.

If you already have a cycled aquarium you can seed the new tank with the filtering media.