Hi All.

[Bromley]

Just thought I would say hi and ask the obligatory newbie question

Got given a Biorb Life square 30 just before Christmas. All brand new in box. Set it up in Jan with 4 Zebra Danios unfortunately didn't know about the nitrogen cycle and lost them all in the first week. I am now doing a fishless cycle. All seemed to be going well. Ammonia was 4ppm was getting to around 0ppm in about 24 hours. Nitrites had been 5pm
For about 10days but now this is 0ppm but my ammonia has been stuck at 2ppm for about 3 days now and I don't know what to do. Was getting so close. Has my cycle stalled?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Oh am using an API freshwater master liquid testing kit

Thanks

J

 

[Joshwainwright]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

I'm currently doing a fishless cycle and my ammonia level also got stuck at 2ppm for 7 days. It may have just been coincidence but I added some fish food to the tank a day before it seemed to kick back into action. I suppose may not have helped however I cannot see a problem in it so why not give it a try?

 

[FishAreFriendsNotFood10]

welcome to the forum

 

[Bromley]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

I'm currently doing a fishless cycle and my ammonia level also got stuck at 2ppm for 7 days. It may have just been coincidence but I added some fish food to the tank a day before it seemed to kick back into action. I suppose may not have helped however I cannot see a problem in it so why not give it a try?

Has your tank now cycled then, and if so how long after the stall did it take to finish cycling?

 

[Joshwainwright]

It's not finished cycling yet but I was stuck on 2ppm ammonia for 7 days!

 

[Skins]

Hello and welcome to the forum

Keith.

 

[Bromley]

Still stuck at about 1-2ppm Ammonia as of yesterday lunch time. I haven't added any ammonia now for 4 days I am wondering if the "good guys" have died off.

Nitrite Reading was 0ppm
Nitrate was 40ppm (but this is the same as what my tap water is!)
PH was 7.6 (well the blue in the tube was darker than the blue on the test card buts that's the highest color it goes to and the High range PH test color the test came back with wasn't on the High Range Color chart in the test kit!)

Whats going on??

 

[Bromley]

Still stuck at about 1-2ppm Ammonia as of yesterday lunch time. I haven't added any ammonia now for 4 days I am wondering if the "good guys" have died off.

Nitrite Reading was 0ppm
Nitrate was 40ppm (but this is the same as what my tap water is!)
PH was 7.6 (well the blue in the tube was darker than the blue on the test card buts that's the highest color it goes to and the High range PH test color the test came back with wasn't on the High Range Color chart in the test kit!)

Whats going on??

Well I decided to add 1ml of ammonia to bring the tank up to 4ppm of ammonia at 7.30 last night, Nitrite started creeping up over a couple of hours and got to 0.50ppm by about 10 o'clock, checked again this morning at 7.30 and ammonia is down to 0.50ppm but my Nitrite is 5ppm again and this had previously been 0ppm, will test again at 7.30 tonight but does this sound like my tank has slowed down or starting a mini cycle or some sort?

 

[Warehouse]

The good news is that the Ammonia munching guys are back at the table again. With no Nitrites being produced for a few days I'd suspect that the Nitrite bacs are a little sleepy and will soon wake up again. As long as the Ammonia is being consumed then everything else will soon catch up again.

 

[Bromley]

Cheers Warehouse, I hope your right. I'll check tonight and post my results back, the wife is really not interested in what I am doing and I need someone to talk about it with

 

[Bromley]

Reading at 7:30 this evening

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm

So both got to 0 in 24 hours. Have topped up again with ammonia and will check again at 7:30am tomorrow hopefully will be back to clearing both in 12 hours.

 

[Bromley]

Ammonia was 0ppm this morning, Nitrite was about 5ppm, so 4ppm of ammonia going in under 12 hours, taking 24 hours for the Nitrite.

When the ammonia is 0ppm (like this morning) do I top it up again or wait for the Nitrate to come down?

Thanks