The Usual Noob Questions About Cycling

[mrtiddles]

14 US Gallon

2x Platy
1x Molly
2x Neon Tetra

5 Plant bulbs,
1 is sprouting

I started the tank with fish in it, I know (blah blah) if I had to do it over, I'd cycle first.

Here is the story. I set up my tank over a month ago and started keeping track daily of the ammonia levels. I use the API liquid test kit for this. I figured once I saw the ammonia drop, I'd get the liquid test kit for Nitrite/Nitrate, but for now I'm using strips for those.

Anyway, Over the month, my ammonia has never been been BELOW .25 and has been as high as 4ppm. I'm getting a wee bit concerned though because I bought a gravel syphon and did a full gravel sweep for the first time (which contributes to higher ammonia I'm sure) and an accompanying 80% water change. However, after the water change, my ammonia is at 1.5ppm. This is after adding the usual dosage of Ammo-Lock to the tap water because my tap water comes out about .75ppm.

So far the fish seem fine, during the spikes I lost a few fish here and there, but the molly has stuck through the entire process. At any rate, I figure with 3 medium fish and 2 small fish it should have cycled by now anyway (from everything I've read).

I shut the filter off during changes, but leave water in it. The filter media seems to be 'dirty' but not obstructed. I'm just kind of frustrated. I was really hoping to get a fully stocked tank by now and it's just killing me by taking forever. Any suggestions?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

unfortunately cycling with fish is not only worse for the fish it's also a longer process and harder work for the fishkeeper!

it often takes several months to complete a fish-in cycle and because you have ammonia in your tap water it'll take even longer.

how often are you doing water changes?

As things stand at the moment you should be checking ammonia and nitrite daily, because of your tap water ammonia the lowest you can hope to achieve is ammonia 0.75ppm and nitrite 0 while cycling (after the cycle you will get 0 and 0).

You should be done as many large water changes as it takes to get your levels this low every single day. So test the water, if it's too high do a 50% water change, wait 1 hr and re-test the water, if it's still too high then do another 50% change, keep on until the levels are at your target, then do the same again.

We've another new fishkeeper on the forum in the same boat as you, three months on is still cycling with fish.

If it's possible to do so I would return all the fish to the lfs and do a fishless cycle. Do you know any other fishkeepers who live close to you? if so then get some filter media from their tank which will speed things up. Just ask for no more than one third of their sponges or whatever other media they have, transport it from their house to yours in some tank water and get it into your filter asap. this will speed up the process considerably

 

[waterdrop]

Nice write-up MW!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mrtiddles]

Cool. Thanks for the response! I'll see what I can do.

 

[minxfishy]

Ammo-lock has been to known to give false ammonia readings I believe, I would stop adding it and just do the daily water changes until you reach the required 0 for ammonia and nitrIte.

 

[mrtiddles]

I found some local Bio Spira today, Gonna quit with the ammo lock and go with the spira, hope it works. Thanks for the replies guys & girls.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, BioSpira can be fun to think about. Here in the USA we have a lot of "educational lotteries" popping up in the states and every now and then someone wins a prize! Its kind of like that. Every now and then you here of someone that thinks they might have had a live bacterial cell or two in one of those bottled cycling products!

The essential thing is to simply be methodical about running your ammonia and nitrite liquid-reagent tests each day and correctly performing water changes if the results for either are not zero. If your filter has media on which bacteria can grow, it should take at most about 4 weeks and then the filter will start doing the job for you and you will be able to ease off the water changes (keeping the values at or near zero will help to keep the fish gills and nervous systems from being destroyed.)

~~waterdrop~~
ps. didn't mean to sound so flippant - I think there is a chance these products will get better over time, actually.

 

[Cantbesaved]

Yeah, getting someone elses media helps a lot. In fact, I had a 2 gallon tank originally, and had 2 filters (1 cheap air pump filter, with some foam and carbon filtering, and an internal pump filter with just a sponge). When I got my new tank, I took both those filters and put them in, beside the intake for the large filter that I bought for the new tank.
Unfortunately I did have to do a fish in cycle since I had 4 neon tetras already.
About 2 weeks in, I removed the little filters, as I wanted to fully concentrate on the main filter, and I did tests constantly. Having those small filters just pumping water through them helped me a GREAT deal, as my tank cycled in just 4 weeks, and I only had to do 1 non-weekly water change, right before the nitrates appeared (about 4 days before).

In short, try to get any filter media at all and slap it in the tank anywhere. I don't know if putting them by the intake tube helped or not, but I figured it may speed the process by tossing some bacteria that escaped thru the main filter and trapping it there...

So ya, hope that helps.

 

[OldMan47]

The filter media will help most right in your filter if there is any way to get it in there. Otherwise the media needs to be placed so that the filter water will go through it. That way you will have the benefit of some mature media in your tank water flow while you cycle the new filter.

Edit: spelling

 

[mrtiddles]

Ok here's the current situation.

Found some bio spira.

Two tanks, one is a 10 gallon I got yesterday for my Betta. I treated that and the 14 gallon with my current fish each with a packet of the Bio Spira. So far, the 14 gallon isn't showing much change, but I'm going to give it another day.

The 10 gallon has already started dropping in ammonia and the nitrites are starting to read about .5ppm. It's been about 8 hours since I treated.

Obviously the 10 gallon is cycling, in my opinion. The 14 should be right behind it, but I imagine the larger tank size and amount of ammonia already present may cause the bacteria to take longer to bloom to the proper population.

Anyway, I now swear by Bio Spira.

ps. I picked up some gravel from my LFS. They couldn't get me a filter for whatever reason so I settled. It's my backup plan

 

[OldMan47]

You need to get that backup plan into your tank where there is an ammonia build up. Otherwise it will have all the value of a pile of rocks.