Fishless Cycling, No Change In Ammonia In 2 Months

[Matt T]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

My names Matt.

Just over 2 months ago me and my girlfriend got an aquarium, which is when i joined the forum and started reading.
I bought some ceramic beads, an ammonia source and an api water testing kit.
The aquarium has an elite stingray filter and is set at 29 degrees C.

Exactly two months ago today I took the ammonia to 4ppm. Since then i have tried a water change and adding a different ammonia source to no avail.
My younger brother bought an aquarium and used the same ammonia source and his tank is almost cycled.

Can anyone give me any pointers or suggest what could be wrong?

The tank is 37 litres and has airation. I washed the gravel before putting it in the tank, likewise with everyhting else including the tank its self. I also added water conditioner as specified.


Thanks
Matt

 

[Truck]

Does the filter contain zeolite? a white substance?

My bet is that the test kit is a dud, like many other API kits.

It could be that the zeolite which comes with the stingray filter has absorbed some of the ammonia, but i would of thought it would be exhausted by now.

 

[Matt T]

Sorry, forgot to mention!

I removed the carbon and zeolite and put ceramic beads in the cartridge and whacked them back in.

The API kit works fine on my brothers tank though, showing changing ammonia levels.

 

[arobinson1984]

Whats your tanks PH?

Does your brother use the same water supply as you or do you live in seperate houses?

Andy

 

[Matt T]

Same house, same water supply.

My PH crashed the fist time and went acidic. This time it is 8.2, is that to do with the ammonia?


Thanks for the help so far

 

[OldMan47]

The form that we get our ammonia in is as Ammonium hydroxide which is a weak base that can move your pH to well over 8.0 if it is present in any significant amount. In industrial applications in water systems, ammonia is sometimes used to control water for boiler systems at over 9.0 pH in the boiler makeup water. In that situation, the ammonia is used only for pH control. By being a volatile gas, the ammonia boils off with the water and does not accumulate in the boiler as so many other chemicals would.

 

[waterdrop]

Everything you've told us makes it sound like you absorbed and put in to practice a lot of the good information here in the "New to the Hobby" forum. Its especially good that you knew about the zeolite problem and took care of that prior to the fishless cycle.

It is a bit of a problem getting us to advise on something that's been going on for 2 months but for which none of us have seen the data (there would be probably over 500 data points very roughly just adding up two readings for ammonia, nitrite(NO2), pH, nitrate(NO3) over 60 days... of course you wouldn't need all that but I assume a lot of that is detailed in your aquarium notebook log, right?)

If you've been observing some of the typical "phases" of fishless cycling that we yak about here then you've presumably seen ammonia start dropping within 24 hours and perhaps you went through a "nitrite spike" phase and perhaps now are waiting for nitrite to drop to zero in less than 24 hours from the time 5ppm of ammonia is added? It could just be that you've had pH crashes that you didn't notice and that took away days from your progress.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Matt T]

I thought id start a log as soon as i saw the ammonia dropping. The first month i put 4ppm of ammonia. I didnt add any more as it never went down. (I checked almost every day) A small amount of nitrite was produced too, early on. I checked the ph and it had become acidic so i did a water change and topped the ammonia back up. The ammonia still never went down. I then did a water change and added some boots ammonia instead of homebase (remembering to keep my filter submerged and also adding dechlorinator in the bucket and mixing it before putting it in the tank). Since then ive been checking every 2 days, the ammonia isnt going down and no nitrite is being produced.

 

[waterdrop]

Well something's clearly wrong. I wonder if any surfactants or soap-like things could have made their way in there. I wonder if the conditioner could be wrong somehow. Surely the water-source isn't so pure that no starter bacteria have managed to creep in, that's unheard of. I assume you've checked to see if any of our members who might donate mature media are living near you?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[AdAndrews]

test kits mate, useless imo, the only way to go is to get some hardy fish, monitor them, they are your test kit, or really, your eyes are.. slowly build up numbers of the hardy fish, such as minnows, guppies, zebra danios, and see how they do, keep up with the water changes, doing about 30% every 2 days is fine.

good luck

 

[waterdrop]

And these complicated computers, we should go back to counting on our fingers, more natural! I agree that test kits can expire or be bad but he's already stated that the kit gave reasonable numbers for a different tank.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Matt T]

Yeah the test kits fine. Ive squeezed the water from my younger brothers sponge into my tank to try and seed the tank. I was wondering if there are any suffacants in my tank which is why i tried a different ammonia source. I could try again and clean out the entire tank i suppose.

Is there any chance my filter doesnt have enough surface area to house the bacteria? Then again, im sure id see at least a small drop over 2 months!!

I might try doing a full water change and use a different water conditioner, im pretty sure my brother used a different one.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[bitteraspects]

squeezing the water out of the sponge and into your tank wont really do anything. the bacteria live in the sponge itself.
what model filter do you have in your tank?
are you sure its the right size for your tank?

ive only seen hagen stingrays for 5g tanks, and yours is twice that

 

[Matt T]

It came with the tank, ill have a look at the model when i get home, but it does look quite undersized. The sponge and cartridges are tiny!

Ill look in the mature media donation part of the forum now, i dont want to waste any that could go to someone else though if my tank is killing off bacteria!

 

[ibuyafish]

Did you and your brother use the same source of ammonia?