FISHLESS CYCLING

[panther1505]

I have been fishless cycling my tank for 13 days now. The last 4 days the water temperature has been 86 degrees F.

My ammonia level has been between 4 and 8ppm according to the test card,
and my nitrite level has been 0ppm since day one.

I'm thinking about doing a 50% water change, and putting in a couple of tetras to begin with, and taking it from there.

This fishless cycling process seems (at least for me) to be taking too long. Or longer than it really should for some reason. A friend of mine has a 36 gallon tank, she put the gravel in, some artificial plants, some other ornamentation, and the filter and heater. After the temperature stabilized at 80 degree F she added about 4 or 5 fish. She said that she added a couple more here and a couple more there. She lost maybe 3 fish throughout the whole process which only took about 3 weeks she said.

My friend does a 10% water change once a month. Her fish are thriving and seem to be healthy. She's got 3 bala sharks, 5 or 6 tetras, 3 glass fish, and 2 cory cats.

Any thoughts on me doing a 50% water change and putting a couple of fish in my tank at a time?

I just think that something must be eating up the ammonia that I'm adding to the water, or else the ammonia level would be out of this world and not just ~5ppm.

 

[tstenback]

I still find it hard to believe that you have no nitrates, but at this point i would try to do the water change, it certainly cant hurt. I cant remember if you had your readings confirmed by another source or not but if you haven't you should try to do so. Do you have nitrates? Are you using seed material from an established tank?

 

[panther1505]

I haven't had a sample of my water tested by my LFS. And I haven't tested for nitrates, because I haven't got a positive reading for nitrites. I just assumed that if I don't have nitrites, I must not have nitrates.
I do not have any seed material in my tank. It is a brand new tank, and I started from scratch with all brand new equipment, and artificial plants.

 

[tstenback]

Just for a lark get your water tested by the LFS. It is very wierd that you have NO nitrites by this point in time. If you have nitrates in the water and you had no seed material then that will prove that cycling has happened to some degree and perhaps we just have to tinker with water changes to get everything back on track. It will be interesting to see the results. I have never seen a tank stall at this point in the cycle and it makes me wonder if your nitrite test is OK. Keep us posted

 

[luxum]

I agree with Tstenback, although 13 days on a brand new, unseeded tank is not unheard of. Get your nitrite results confirmed, test kits go bad or are sometimes bad at purchase. Check your nitrates also, it is possible that there is so little nitrite being produced that it's being immediately converted to nitrate and hence you have no measureable nitrites. The nitrite will spike once the ammonia spike is converted.

Regarding your question about switching to with fish cycling, it's your call. Me personally, i consider it cruel to subject fish to the toxic products of an establishing nitrogen cycle when there is another reliable way to do it.

The only time i've seen a fishless cycle stall is when people become impatient at the wrong point in the process and begin to change approaches like dosage or start doing water changes. If you stick with it, it will cycle, and you'll have an extremely large bed of bacteria that can support a full fishload immediately.

 

[panther1505]

If I do decide to stick with the fishless cycling, and I test for nitrates, and get a positive reading for nitrates, but my LFS gets a 0ppm reading for nitrites, should I keep adding ammonia until I get a nitrite spike, or should I do my 50% water change and then start adding fish?

 

[tstenback]

Do not add any fish until you get the ammonia level to zero. Even if that takes several water changes over several days. The whole idea is to get the tank cycled which means zero ammonia, zero nitrites and a positive nitrate reading. So if you have nitrates and didnt use seed material and your tap water has zero nitrates, your nitrites are already zero, you must get your ammonia level to zero. I did this with a 90% water change one day and then a 50% change the next day. I then added aboout 5 ml of ammonia and tested the following day to make sure the tank was cycled. The reading for ammonia the next day was zero and i added 6 platties with no further spikes. HTH

 

[panther1505]

So I should test both my tap water and my tank water for nitrates?

If my tank water has 0 nitrites, and my tap water has 0 nitrates, but my tank water has positive nitrates, should I cut my ammonia dose in half until I get 0ppm ammonia, then do a water change?

What level should my nitrates be at before I add fish?

 

[tstenback]

Yes test both.

If that combination exists i would do the water change to get your ammonia to zero and then add the 5 ml of ammonia and see if it get eaten up in 24 hours. If it does then add fish. remember that if you dont add fish that day then you do have to add ammonia to feed the bacteria.

Its good to keep nitrates around 20 or less.

 

[panther1505]

What if after a while, after fish are added, the nitrate level goes up to, say,
30, or above?
How do you bring it back to to around 20?

Water change?

How much of a water change do you suggest, and how often?

 

[luxum]

Yes, if your tap water has low or no nitrates, water changes are the answer. A good starting point is to do about 20% of the tank volume once a week.

 

[panther1505]

I just tested the ammonia level, the nitrite level and the nitrate level in my tank.

ammonia = ~5ppm

nitrite = 0ppm

nitrate = 0ppm

My tap water reads 0ppm for nitrates also.

What am I doing wrong? This is so irritating. I've been putting 4 teaspoons of ammonia in my tank water since June 6th. Which keeps the level at about 5ppm. So that's about 14 days. 14x5 = 70.

If I have no nitrites, and no nitrates, then my ammonia level should be about 70ppm.

What is eating the ammonia?

I am following the fishless cycle procedure to the letter. My water level is down approximately an inch and a half from all of the testing that I've been doing.

Please help.

 

[tstenback]

If your ammonia is not going up from day to day, then something is eating the ammonia. You have done your testing and you have no nitrites and no nitrates. Have you had the water tested by someone else?

 

[luxum]

What am I doing wrong?

Well, the bitter truth is the only thing you are doing wrong is losing your patience. The accelerated fishless cycling times you hear of were done by practically cloning a mature tank. But fishless cycling can take a month to 6 weeks total depending on seeding and temp, and 2 weeks before nitrites show is not unreasonable. In short, you should not be freaking out yet. I'm sorry we keep asking, i get the various fishless cycle posts confused, but have you confirmed the results of this nitrite tester?

 

[panther1505]

Yes, I have confirmed the nitrite tester. My tank water is at 0ppm. I guess I'm losing my patience because the ammonia is staying steady at about 5ppm when I am adding ammonia to the water every day, but yet, I'm not getting any other positive results.
And from what I've been reading all over this website is that my ammonia level should have skyrocketed if I've got no nitrites.