TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
@JatLB
There has to be something stalling thing or else chnging things.
I am not a van of most products sold to seed the cycle. Almost none of them contain the proper living bacteria. I personally nelieve the best use for Stability is as a toilet bowl cleaner. SeaChem makes some great products, I use a few of them, but Stability is not one. In a nut shell. stability is a bottle of spores, the nitrifying bacteria do form spores, they reproduce by dividing.
I only recommend two cycling products which are essentially the same thing; Dr, Tim's One and Only and Tetra's Safe Start Plus. There are a number of patens whuch protect the bacteria that handle nitrite in tanks. so other products besides those two contain them- they are called Nitrospira.
However, there are other bacteria that can process both ammonia and nitrite. But they are not ones which are found lon term in tanks. My best guess is that stability contains things that help over the shorter term but do not persist in tanks very long. They get replaced by the ones found in the two products I mentioned.
My best guess here without a lot more info about how things progessed in your tank from the start is that the Stability is the culprit. Cycling is a process and knowing exactly where a tank is in the process is how one can determine what to do. Bacterial strains for nitrification vary and they have different affinities for ammonia and nitrite, This basically refers to how much of these things they need to thrive. Some do great on lower leverl like we find in aquariums and other thrive in waste treatment where the levels the very high.
So I am thinking that thie issue in your tank is that whatever in stability processes nitrite may be holding that down. That fuel stuff is basically ammonia. I have ni idea what exactly in any bottled bacterial product besides the two I mentioned and I have no clue how what they might be affect a cycle.
So my next question is have to done a huge water change at any point in your cucling? By uge I mean as close tp 100% as possible? Normally, when cycle appears stuck the best solution is to do reset to get as much as in the water out and start over. The next Q is what dechlor are you using? Because how SeaChem Prime works it can cause bad readings for ammonia. SiInce they are not sure how it works to neutralize nitrite, I am not sure it cannot do the same for it. So the solution is to do the test either very soon after adding the prime or else to wait for at least 36 hours to test.
Normally, the best way to dechlor for cycling is to use one which does not detoxify ammonia or say it also does so for nitrite.
To do a reset:
1. Test for both ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and recods the numbers.
2. Do a massive water change and dechlor the water. Test again for the three nitrogen items again and test the pH or if you have the test, for KH and record the numbers. The bacteria use KH as an inorganic carbon source. KH is also what keeps pH from dropping.
3. Assuming your ammonia is going to between 0 and .25 ppm and the nitrite is not above 2.0, dose 3 ppm of ammonia into the tank.
4. Wait about 15 minutes a test for ammonia. It should be about 3.0 ppm. If you had ammonia as mentioned in #3, add it to 3.0 and that is the max. level you should have. You could have a bit under 3.0 as well, Whatever the number is, record it and then wait 24 hours.
5. Test again. Start with ammonia, if it has dropped from what you tested in #4, then test for nitrite. record the numbers. Also test again for either pH or KH.
Please post all the resuylts from the steps above in this thread, Hopefull this will give a better picturr of what is going on in your tank.
Do not add other chemicals/additives/etc. aside from the dechlor.
*The reason for testing the pH is it will help let us be sure that low KH isn't causing an issue.
There has to be something stalling thing or else chnging things.
I am not a van of most products sold to seed the cycle. Almost none of them contain the proper living bacteria. I personally nelieve the best use for Stability is as a toilet bowl cleaner. SeaChem makes some great products, I use a few of them, but Stability is not one. In a nut shell. stability is a bottle of spores, the nitrifying bacteria do form spores, they reproduce by dividing.
I only recommend two cycling products which are essentially the same thing; Dr, Tim's One and Only and Tetra's Safe Start Plus. There are a number of patens whuch protect the bacteria that handle nitrite in tanks. so other products besides those two contain them- they are called Nitrospira.
However, there are other bacteria that can process both ammonia and nitrite. But they are not ones which are found lon term in tanks. My best guess is that stability contains things that help over the shorter term but do not persist in tanks very long. They get replaced by the ones found in the two products I mentioned.
My best guess here without a lot more info about how things progessed in your tank from the start is that the Stability is the culprit. Cycling is a process and knowing exactly where a tank is in the process is how one can determine what to do. Bacterial strains for nitrification vary and they have different affinities for ammonia and nitrite, This basically refers to how much of these things they need to thrive. Some do great on lower leverl like we find in aquariums and other thrive in waste treatment where the levels the very high.
So I am thinking that thie issue in your tank is that whatever in stability processes nitrite may be holding that down. That fuel stuff is basically ammonia. I have ni idea what exactly in any bottled bacterial product besides the two I mentioned and I have no clue how what they might be affect a cycle.
So my next question is have to done a huge water change at any point in your cucling? By uge I mean as close tp 100% as possible? Normally, when cycle appears stuck the best solution is to do reset to get as much as in the water out and start over. The next Q is what dechlor are you using? Because how SeaChem Prime works it can cause bad readings for ammonia. SiInce they are not sure how it works to neutralize nitrite, I am not sure it cannot do the same for it. So the solution is to do the test either very soon after adding the prime or else to wait for at least 36 hours to test.
Normally, the best way to dechlor for cycling is to use one which does not detoxify ammonia or say it also does so for nitrite.
To do a reset:
1. Test for both ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and recods the numbers.
2. Do a massive water change and dechlor the water. Test again for the three nitrogen items again and test the pH or if you have the test, for KH and record the numbers. The bacteria use KH as an inorganic carbon source. KH is also what keeps pH from dropping.
3. Assuming your ammonia is going to between 0 and .25 ppm and the nitrite is not above 2.0, dose 3 ppm of ammonia into the tank.
4. Wait about 15 minutes a test for ammonia. It should be about 3.0 ppm. If you had ammonia as mentioned in #3, add it to 3.0 and that is the max. level you should have. You could have a bit under 3.0 as well, Whatever the number is, record it and then wait 24 hours.
5. Test again. Start with ammonia, if it has dropped from what you tested in #4, then test for nitrite. record the numbers. Also test again for either pH or KH.
Please post all the resuylts from the steps above in this thread, Hopefull this will give a better picturr of what is going on in your tank.
Do not add other chemicals/additives/etc. aside from the dechlor.
*The reason for testing the pH is it will help let us be sure that low KH isn't causing an issue.
