Tank Will Not Cycle?

[robyngunston]

Hi everyone,

It's me again, I feel like I am forever on here posting the same question so please accept my apologies for posting this once again.
I have been trying to cycle my tank for months and when I say months it really has been ages, since April/May this year. It's a fishless cycle so at least no fish have been harmed in the process, however I am getting extremely frustrated that I haven't got any fish to admire.
It has been so long so where do I start?
How things look at the moment is that I am adding 32 drops of ammonia into my tank (please see tank stats in my signature), this increases the ammonia reading to about 4, and it takes about 48 hours for this to drop to 0.....the nitrite level remains constant at 0 (this is 0 as well if a diluted test is done 50/50) and the nitrate level increases slowly. (Therefore you would assume it was cycled, however it seems to be stuck at 48 hours, it will not come down any quicker)
I was told maybe my filter (Rena filstar v2) was not big enough....since then I have added another (Rena filstar v3) so I now have two filters running in the tank at once to try and encourage the bacteria growth. My temperature stays constant at 82 (again to encourage growth) and I am now doing weekly 40% water changes to keep the nitrates down.
My lfs recommended some coral rocks to be placed under the filter as apparently in scotland the water has a low PH so this was supposed to help, which did help as initially it was taking about a week for the ammonia to come down.
I just don't know what else to do? I checked the PH today just out of interest and this is reading 6 on my API testkit, could this be the problem? How would I know if it is below 6? (it was a strange yellow colour, with a possible tint of orange?)
Oh...please note the water in the tank is not the same water I have had for months, I have replaced 90% of the water a few times but no change.....still dropping from 4 to 0 in 48 hours?
Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[DarkEntity]

While cycling you dont do any water changes. In a nut shell all you do is add some bacteria to the tank (either mature water/filter sweezings, easy balance, stress zhyme) or similar and leave. Keep monitoring the stats, after about a week the ammonia will zero and thats u. Every time you do a water change you are pretty much restarting the cycle.

Ps im in Scotland and the PH is roughtly 7 which is neutral.

Also if the PH colour is yellow thats more like a 4 or 5

Once the cycle is complete and all the readings are good, you then do a water change of about 60-70% at the most so that the nitirites are gone prior to adding fish.

 

[Glod]

An exceptionally low Ph in your tank will inhibit the growth of the bacteria you are trying to encourage.
I'm in scotland too and my water comes out the tap at Ph 7. In my community thank the Ph balances out about 7.4-7.6. In my Betta tank the Ph is about 6.8. The only difference is my Betta tank has no rocks added, I guess one of the rocks in my big tank must be buffering the water.
I'd test the tap water and see how that compares to your tank.
Also, as has been noted you don't want to be changing the water during the fishless cycle. especially if you're adding untreated tap water. Hopefully you're using some form of dechlorinator.
I'm inclined to suspect your test kit. If you're adding ammonia and it goes down to 0 and nitrates rise is it possible you missed your nitrite spike during a gap in testing ?

 

[mark.w.jones]

You must be the most patient person in the world. I must admit id be inclined to stock now to be honest. You obviously have a fair amount of bacteria present as you are getting rid of your ammonia in 2 days. Maybe stock about 2 / 3 of you final stocking level and in the beginning add your more hardy species. See how things go. Other than that, try and get hold of some sponge or filter media from a mature tank. This will greatly help to stablise and improve things.

 

[Kevstir]

Hi m8

i had the same problem, my cycle started of fine but stalled and didn't do anything for a week, i tested my pH and it was the same as yours, after some research i found out that below 6 the bacteria stop multiplying , my pH was that low due to the bogwood leaking tannins (seems fine now), my tap water is 7 , what i did to bring it up was add baking soda (BYCARB SODA), 2 teaspoons brought it up to 7 on my 180 ltr, might be worth adding a little baking soda to bring it up a little

 

[Cake]

Isn’t 32 drops quite a lot for 12 gallons? Once you initially get the ammonia up to around 4 and back to 0, you reduce the amount to your approximate bioload and wait for it to consistently zero out in 12 hours.

If your nitrites are 0 and nitrates are readable, I think you have a fully cycled tank and just need to back off on the ammonia.

 

[robyngunston]

Dear All,

Thanks for the advice!

To answer the above question....my tapwater tests at around 6.8....but for some reason once the water has been in the tank for a few days it drops? As you can see I have nothing other than sand in the tank at the moment so as far as I can tell this would not be causing the drop? On speaking to my lfs he said this can sometimes be the case here in Glasgow and that it has something to do with the chemicals they add to the water? He suggested I put some coral sand or a small coral rock in the filter as it would work as a buffer of sorts? At the time the filter I had was too small to house anything more than the sponge, however I now have a bigger filter so I might try this and see if it helps?

With regards to the water changes.......I have only started this recently since all the stats have balanced out, because the Nitrate level will rise to extreme levels and this can apparently cause the bacteria to stall as well?

I might try adding some baking soda as requested that might help too?

And yes I think I have been very patient considering the length of time in question. People kept on saying be patient and wait but I think it has now got to the point that I need to do something.

I think I will wait until my PH level has come down to an acceptable level before I decide to add any fish

 

[Kevstir]

what kind of sand do you have ???

as has been said 32 drops sounds a bit much for 12 gallons (about 45 ltr) , when i was trying to work out how many to put in my tank (180 ltr, 47 gallons) i filled a bucket up with 10 ltrs and added a bit at a time to work it out, it worked out to 4 drops , so 18 x 4 worked out at 72 drops.

Kev

 

[Creature Seeker]

^When you say drops, do you mean 1 drop = 1 pipette full or 1 single drop?

...

 

[karuna]

I live in Fife and the water here is crazy soft, because the water is so soft the ph crashes quite quickly which is fine for me cause I keep kribs and they love slightly acidic water. To get around this, the easiest thing to do is frequently change the water as you seem to have been doing. However, with reflection on what other ppl have posted I would perhaps recommend not changing the water till you have the bacteria going but meanwhile tackling the ph drop in another manner (the baking soda method or whatever you think will be best).

But I'm still very much an amateur so I would do some research yourself into soft/hard water and how to test your own to find out and what recommended measures you can take to balance the ph manually.

Hope that might help some and good luck with the tank.

 

[Kevstir]

^When you say drops, do you mean 1 drop = 1 pipette full or 1 single drop?

...

sorry didn't explain that part , i got a medicine dropper from boots like this link
and used 1 drop as the measurement .

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if it's converting the amonia to nitrate then there's obviously some bacteria there doing it's job.

firstly see if you can get any mature filter media, there's a pinned topic of members willing to donate, have a look for someone in your area and pm them.

if you can't then i'd be inclined to start stocking, do it very slowly and be prepared for water changes if you see any amonia or nitrite spike, but personally i reckon your good to go.

 

[Kevstir]

i must confess i never let my cycle run its full course , mainly due to the fact i wasn't going to fully stock right away , i had been cycling for just over 4 weeks (seeded with gravel from other tank) , ammonia was getting processed in 12 hours and nitrite was staying on the chart nitrates were high , as i only had 22 small fish to transfer over i was confidant that there was enough bacteria to deal with that amount of fish, Friday night i did a full water change left it to settle for an hour and added the fish , all readings were zero the next day , i added 3 panda Cory's and 2 blue rams at about 6pm on the sat and still the readings are zero , if your not looking to fully stock right away m8 i would think you have enough bacteria already to deal with a few fish..

 

[Creature Seeker]

lol, so you use one drop not one whole dropper full?

...

 

[Kevstir]

some people lol, fill it up squeeze the rubber bit lightly and count the drops its not rocket science, is that good enough