waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
OK, when a fishless cycle doesn't respond and doesn't seem to move but most of the right things are being done then often we don't have a good answer, it may be some problem with some substance we don't know to test for, as this thing of fishless cycling has only been going on for about 20 years or so (which is young for figuring things out) and is based more on hobby science than real science. So obviously there's a lot of speculation in our comments but I'll try to make some.
I think your fishless cycle should not be considered to start until when the carbon was switched for the pad and so is a week shorter, putting you closer to 3 weeks since the start. We don't often recommend a water change this early on in a fishless cycle but I feel we should do one due to the lack of any kind of ammonia movement showing.
Here's my thought about that: Very small numbers of single-celled autotrophs (Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira) come in via the tap water. They are presumably the survivors, many of their species having been killed off by the chlorine/chloramine that the water authority puts in the pipes (I'm assuming you have city water, not well water, but small numbers of autotrophs should be in almost any water.) Once they get in your aquarium, where the water has been treated by your TapSafe they will be free to find a surface, begin to exude a biofilm and multiply. They will have had the best chance to do this on the sponge and pad in your filter because both ammonia and fresh oxygen will be moved past them constantly by the filter pump. The autotrophs live almost entirely on surfaces like this and hardly at all out in the free moving water. So when we siphon all the water out of the tank (except the filter) and replace it with fresh tap water, we raise the chance that a few more autotrophs will make it -in- to the system (the ones that have already "found" the filter will stay there through the water change. The fresh tap water will also contain some trace elements (such as calcium and magnesium etc.) which the autotrophs also use in small amounts and which are sometimes in too low a supply for them in some water systems. So a water change is not all bad (the down side of a water change, we think, is that the inevitable temperature and maybe other differences can seem to cause the bacterial activity to "pause" a little (but in your case there is hardly any sign of activity, so hey!) Turn off your filter and heater, gravel clean the water out all the way down to the gravel. Refill with water that has had the tap safe treated at about 1.5x what it tells you and with the temp matched to what it was before you took it out (about 29C/84F hopefully.) Recharge the ammonia back up to 4ppm and mix a tiny pinch of flake food back in for added complication of trace elements. Get the filter and heater running again of course. And in your log, begin including pH at least every other day or so, as well as occasional nitrate(NO3) entries. The members may be able to see a bit more info from all this.
~~waterdrop~~
I think your fishless cycle should not be considered to start until when the carbon was switched for the pad and so is a week shorter, putting you closer to 3 weeks since the start. We don't often recommend a water change this early on in a fishless cycle but I feel we should do one due to the lack of any kind of ammonia movement showing.
Here's my thought about that: Very small numbers of single-celled autotrophs (Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira) come in via the tap water. They are presumably the survivors, many of their species having been killed off by the chlorine/chloramine that the water authority puts in the pipes (I'm assuming you have city water, not well water, but small numbers of autotrophs should be in almost any water.) Once they get in your aquarium, where the water has been treated by your TapSafe they will be free to find a surface, begin to exude a biofilm and multiply. They will have had the best chance to do this on the sponge and pad in your filter because both ammonia and fresh oxygen will be moved past them constantly by the filter pump. The autotrophs live almost entirely on surfaces like this and hardly at all out in the free moving water. So when we siphon all the water out of the tank (except the filter) and replace it with fresh tap water, we raise the chance that a few more autotrophs will make it -in- to the system (the ones that have already "found" the filter will stay there through the water change. The fresh tap water will also contain some trace elements (such as calcium and magnesium etc.) which the autotrophs also use in small amounts and which are sometimes in too low a supply for them in some water systems. So a water change is not all bad (the down side of a water change, we think, is that the inevitable temperature and maybe other differences can seem to cause the bacterial activity to "pause" a little (but in your case there is hardly any sign of activity, so hey!) Turn off your filter and heater, gravel clean the water out all the way down to the gravel. Refill with water that has had the tap safe treated at about 1.5x what it tells you and with the temp matched to what it was before you took it out (about 29C/84F hopefully.) Recharge the ammonia back up to 4ppm and mix a tiny pinch of flake food back in for added complication of trace elements. Get the filter and heater running again of course. And in your log, begin including pH at least every other day or so, as well as occasional nitrate(NO3) entries. The members may be able to see a bit more info from all this.
~~waterdrop~~
mind you i was at square one anyway! Maybe me and fish are not meant to be lol its becoming a disaster!
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/355936-my-tank-pics-inside/
