cycling problem

[caterpillar5]

ive been cycling my tank for like 6 weeks now.. this is a fishless cycle.
originally after 4 weeks my tank seemed cycle... except the fact my ammonia was very high (off the charts). My nitrite did spike and went down to 0. but ammonia stayed up there. My nitrates was high too. So then i thought my tank was overloaded with too much ammonia so i did a 70% water change with dechlorinated water. After that, my nitrite spiked again and stayed at around 7ppm for the next two weeks, i added smaller amounts of ammonia and now the nitrite has finally gone down for the second time. But ammonia is still 1-2ppm. What is going on? i have tried to cycle, but the ammonia never goes down to 0. any help aprreciated.

 

[black angel]

not sure but i would say you might need to do more water changes to keep the ammonia level down. i have cycled tanks before but with fish in them so i have never cycled fishless.

 

[Arfie]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but in fishless cycling, when Nitrites start to spike, you should half the amount of ammonia being added to the tank and continue until both Ammonia and Nitrites read 0.

Arfie

 

[caterpillar5]

yes that is correct and i have been doing that...

 

[luxum]

Do enough water changes to take the ammonia level to zero, not some arbitrary percentage of the tank. Then add your half dose and see what happens in 24 hours, i expect the dose will be completely converted and you'll be able to consider it cycled.

 

[caterpillar5]

thx for your help everyone. much appreciated

 

[luxum]

Good luck! Your patience will soon be rewarded!

 

[caterpillar5]

another problem, i did a 90-95% water change, as much as i could and i filled it up with dechlorinated water and left it for a day and my ammonia reading is 0.5ppm and nitrite is 0. My tap water contains about 0.5ppm ammonia, but if my tank is cycled should it be zero at least after 1 day? what is going on? im getting so frustrated, ive been cycling for over 6 weeks now

 

[bogusmove]

tap water contains about 0.5ppm ammonia

I *THINK* if your tap water has ammonia that means it's been treated with chloramine rather than chlorine. Chloramines are more difficult to get rid of although there plenty of products that work...

Assuming whatever your using will protect against the ammonia and chloramines maybe you could try using a little more.

Is your ammonia test definitely ok? Do you have a friends tank water you can test or anything?

If you leave the tank without adding ammonia does the ammonia level drop then? It should, as bacteria should eat it.... if this happens though remember to add a bit back again to continue cycling or the ammonia eating bacteria will starve. Maybe add less though if that's the case.

One things for sure, you definitely want to get to a point where you can do a water change without having that nitrite spike before you add fish, cos if you can't you're going to have a problem!

i did a 90-95% water change

Did you put in water pretreated or treat it in the tank?

 

[caterpillar5]

i think my tests are ok, because my brother uses it too and it seems fine. When i do leave it for a day, the ammonia does drop, but maybe only 1ppm not much tho. Thats why im a bit stuck with what to do... i want the ammonia to go back to zero but i dont want to overload my tank with ammonia again. If i add i know it wont go down for a while, but i had nitrite spike already, so my ammonia should have went down before the nitrite dropped. I have never seen my ammonia reading at 0... arghh...
and yes, when i did change 90-95% of the water, i pre-treated it.

 

[bogusmove]

When i do leave it for a day, the ammonia does drop, but maybe only 1ppm not much tho. Thats why im a bit stuck with what to do... i want the ammonia to go back to zero but i dont want to overload my tank with ammonia again

Ok... I hope someone with more experience can confirm, but I would have thought that if the ammonia levels drop if you leave it, it's probably being processed into nitrite, and if you aren't getting further nitrite then I guess the nitrite is being processed into nitrate... You could do a nitrate test to verify this.

Sounds like your almost there, maybe it's worth reducing your ammonia additions a bit to see if the tank processes the lower load more as you would expect.

i think my tests are ok, because my brother uses it too

Sounds like your brother has a tank. Could you borrow some gravel from your brother? It'll probably have lots of bacteria on it. It sounds like you might be getting there with your cycling anyway, but introducing gravel from an established tank can reduce the cycle time to a few days or a week...

 

[caterpillar5]

thx for all your help, i hope everything works out..
fingers crossed