Still cycling...

[Squirrelbuddies]

I'm on day 19 of fishless cycling of my 55 gallon. Nitrite has been stuck at 2.0ppm for 8 days - which seems like forever. Ammonia readings are at 0 every morning so I keep adding ammonia.

Algae is growing all over the tank - brown and green (mostly brown). Also, the java moss looks like it had a couple of blue/greenish looking "balls" of algae - which I removed.

So as of tonight my readings are:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 2.0ppm
Nitrate 40-80ppm (hard to tell the difference between 40 and 80 on the chart)
Phosphate 0.50

Added 15 drops of ammonia (add 15 in the AM and 15 in the PM and it's always at zero when I test)

The amazon swords look a bit cruddy as they have brown algae growing on them. Overall, the tank just looks depressing: no fish, algae all over the place, stressed plants and high nitrite. And oh yes, I now have snails.

Is there anything else I should be doing? I would like to very much drain out half the water, clean up the algae and buy some healthy looking plants. Should I wait until it's cycled or is it ok to do that now? How much longer before the nitrite finally drops? Arrrrgggghhh....getting frustrated and just need a little encouragement!

 

[StarOrbs]

I've been there, what I did that worked was empty some water to get Nitrite down to .5 PPM then I let it go and added ammonia for a few more days then I did a large water change, cleaned up the ugly algae waited 24 hours for it to circulate the water then I added some fish and my nitrite and ammonia have been 0 for a while now. I'm just going to be waiting for a few more days then I'm going to add some more of the fish I selected. I did this so I don't overload the tank right away. You can wait it will evetually finish but I've found this to be a bit faster. Or perhaps I was just lucky, lol.

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

That sounds good to me!! How much water did you change just before you got the .50 nitrite reading?

 

[Final Dynazty]

do a water changed scrub the tank. keep the light on for a minimum of three ours a day. for the plants u need a special light bulb and a carbon diffusor.( I think thats whats it called). some strong plants to consider are java fern, melon sword, and anubis.

 

[StarOrbs]

That sounds good to me!! How much water did you change just before you got the .50 nitrite reading?

I changed about 40% of the water because at one point my nitrite was too high to read so I did a couple water changes to lower it so I could tell what I had. lol I would empty 10% of the water and get it to the level you wish too.

 

[xrenegadex]

i'm cycling with several fish and it's....stuck....the levels haven't moved in about 2 weeks..... .5 ppm ammonia and >8.0 ppm (off the scale) nitrite. Ph is holding at a little over 7 and all the fish seem fine....but it's not moving...is there anything i can do to speed it up some more?

 

[daza]

when I fishless cycled, my nitrites were off the scale at over 10mg/l for 8 days and the nitrates off the scale at over 250mg/l for 8 days. I just kept adding the ammonia, with no water changes or anything, and the tank cycled perfectly.

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

Well, it's now day 23 and nitrite is still at 2.0 (it could actually be 5.0 but I have a hard time telling the difference on the chart....getting eyes checked tomorrow.)

BUT -- Nitrate has dropped to 10 (was 40-80/again hard to tell the difference on the chart.)

Within the past few days, I have replaced 25% of the water, cleaned up the cruddy looking algae and added 5 more plants (already had 5 in there.) Would removing the algae and adding plants make the nitrate drop that much even though the nitrite is staying the same? Ammonia is always at 0 when I test. I add 15 drops in the AM and another 15 in the PM.

I just worry that something happened to the nitrite-consuming bacteria.