40 Days, Cycle Won't Start, Help!

I never doubted TTA.  I believe this product works to SPEED UP a cycle, but the "instant" claims are where I take issue.  There is a big difference between taking a week - two weeks versus it happens so fast you can add fish immediately and never have ammonia or nitrite.  It seems to be a very good product, but I think there are a lot of holes still to be patched with it.  
 
I'd like to see an example where someone has used it for a fish-in cycle and post their results.  It would be interesting to see how high the ammonia & nitrite get during the process.  I wonder what Dr Hovanec's idea of safe or acceptable levels for fish are.
 
Personally I'm quite satisfied with the product and the claims, I'm very happy to be reaching zeroes in 12 days and, let's face it, I've had a few bumps along the way so I can easily believe it could work faster under ideal conditions.  I don't like the 'instant' claim much either but it's claiming to create an instant biofilter not instantly cycle the tank, which I think is fair enough.  Not sure about adding fish straightaway but I don't think I could make any assumptions about it based on my experience, it'll be totally different.
 
I think I might start buying some plants for the tank...
 
eagle- you are sort of comparing apples to oranges. There is a difference between the two areas you are combining. Yes you can add a few fish as soon as you add the bottled bacteria. But that does not mean you can fully stock the tank. And that is what folks are told in general.
 
The quote that rankled you starts out with somebody asking how many fish can I add after I dose. Now nowhere on the site, until that question, has the issue of how big a bio-load can I add immediately, which is really what the question is asking. As we all know one may be able to add a dozen full grown cardinal tetras to a tank fine but not be able to add one full grown oscar.
 
The answer to that question will vary. Lets say you, daize and I all have the same size tanks and we dose the same amount of the bacteria. But my tank has live plants and a neutral pH, yours is for African cichlid tank with a pH in the low 8s and daize loves dwarf puffers so has a a few live plants and will stock very few fish and her pH is between ours. Now if we ask the same question- how many fish can we stock after adding the bacteria, the answer better dang well be different for each of us. My plants will help control nitrogen, so I can add more than if unplanted. Yours has no plants and even though the higher pH may make bacteria multiply a bit faster, that pH will make any ammonia more toxic in your tank, so you should stock more lightly than normally. Finally. daize will be getting only a few fish, and she is smart enough to be doing basically a species tank where too many puffers = they kill each other, so she can likely fully stock. So you can see, the answer is not so simple. But, I would bet that there is nowhere on Dr. Tim's site where it says you can fully stock any tank right after dosing the product.
 
And there is nothing wrong in either of the two claims you posted, but I am happy to investigate them one at a time and I will even use daize's recent experience for support:
 
Eliminates new tank syndrome- This refers to ammonia and nitrite levels rising to dangerous levels- i.e. they seriously harm or kill fish, daize's numbers bear this out. She dosed to 3 ppm, on the high side. He levels were barely harmful to hardy fish for a day or two. Had she dosed to the 2 ppm level her numbers would have been safe enough to put fish in all along. Using the bacteria keeps the tank at safe levels for a short time for a few fish Put in the bottled bacteria and add a few fish and you will do just fine. So this claim is true.
 
Instantly creates a bio filter- to the extent the proper bacteria are in the tank and go to work right away, this is true. If you want to insist that creating a bio-filter means building up all the types of bacteria, not only the nitrifyers, and that they be well ensconced in a bio-film, then it is false.

Removes toxic ammonia and nitrite, naturally- do we really need to discus this at all?

No sulfur or other offensive odors- do we really need to discus this at all?

No wait needed- refer to points one and two above. Do things properly, and you can begin to stock lightly right away. The fish will be subject to some low level ammonia and nitrite for a very brief time that does not cause permanent harm or damage to the fish. And for sure ammonia and nitrite levels will neither get as high, nor last as long as they would in a fish in cycle with no jump start, either bottled or media transferred.

100% natural- I do not think they have invented nanobot bacteria yet.
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I see no problem with most of the claims being made on Dr Tim's site. In fact I see plenty of caveats. They warn about exposing the bottle to cold or heat, they warn about how long it will normally remain useful, they warn that nothing is written in stone by saying things like "in 3-5 days", or if the directions are followed. And yes there is also a certain amount of spin in it all, but that is to be expected from all product makers.
 
But lets go back to daize and her results. She is close to cycled- so what if is about 15 days instead of 7 from that point of view? Given her previous tries, this one is a real winner. And then breeze through the Your New freshwater Tank forum and read all the cycling threads. How many of them have ammonia never getting much above 1.0 or so and then have nitrites peak at about .50 so fast? I bet a lot of the thread starters would have been pleased to get daize's recent results. And lets not forget, had she not paused between the first two doses, it may have gone fastert?
 
The problem that causes most of the failures when folks use viable bottled bacteria is operator error. The same is true for most fishless cycles that do not use a bottled starter. There is biology and chemistry at work here, but most people don't want to hear about it. They want it simple and easy and thus screw up by not doing things right or else they over analyze and then react by doing something when what they really should do is nothing. I mean what do we expect any new fish keeper will do with their very first test kits? They will test the heck out of everything. And then not really understanding whats going on, they will blindly react to the readings. And the reason much of this happens is because of what they read or are told online.
 
What I really want to hear is how those folks who claim bottled bacteria can not and does not work explain what got daize's tank virtually cycled in 15 days? How do they explain it in light of all her previous tries? I can understand how those people who either messed it up or who might have gotten a bad bottle can believe the product doesn't work and will say so. So that explains a lot of the reported failures many folks like to quote when they say the products are snake oil. But then what is the explanation for all those folks who report the product worked? I am sure daize will say Dr Tims got her tank cycled, why would she say that if it wasn't true? How do the naysayers explain the reports of successful results?
 
daize- Start
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picking
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out
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fish
 
 
 
 
Well I think, considering the previous history of cycling this tank, that that bottled bacteria did quite a lot. With the Tetra Safe Start I also noticed that I barely had any nitrIte spike. It was a 2 day reading and down to 0, although I had fish in.
I don't think I've seen a cycling thread taking 2 weeks only, whether with bacteria or not.
 
I am very pleased for daize. 
 
Until someone can prove to me what these 'bottled' bacteria live on whilst within the bottles during transit (which could, surely, be upto weeks and weeks at a time) then i will always remain sceptical about them. Do they work? I'm not sure. Do they cause any damage? No. The only type of bacteria you can physically put into a filter to reduce any cycle time is healthy, mature bacteria from another filter. In my humble opinion only, of course. Meh.
 
Terry.
 
There's no need for someone to prove to you on a forum that bacteria can live in a bottle for a certain period of time. You can do your own research instead of jumping to unfounded conclusions. There's enough scientific data out there suggesting it's possible if you have the time to reasearch. The minimum you can find are scientific experiments I read about a year ago that filter bacteria(can't remember which species) can regenerate itself after a period of two weeks being deprived from food, but that's where the scientific experiment stopped at. I don't know if someone published anything for longer periods but the conclusion was that the longer it hasn't functioned, the longer it takes it to recover, but it certainly doesn't die as quickly as we think.
 
Scepticism is the forebear of progress! Please, come to our thread in the scientific section where we are discussing this very issue! Add to the debate.

And you guys who have stuck with me all this way, I seriously wish I could buy you all beers. Thank you so much for your support! This would have been so much harder without you.
 
Taffy- its easy to remain uninformed in the absence of making an effort to become so. So let me ask you. Can you prove or even show exactly how fast the aquarium bacteria do die? Can you even prove they die at all? Lets start there and then I would be happy to respond.
 
 
Ah heck I can't help myself.- Here you go Taffy- spend the next half hour reading this:
 
Strategies of aerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria for coping with nutrient and oxygen fluctuations
published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology  Volume 58, Issue 1, pages 1–13, October 2006
Authors- Joke Geets, Nico Boon, Willy Verstraete at the Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-6941.2006.00170.x/full
 
Here is a clue. When the bacteria detect that ammonia and/or oxygen levels have dropped below needed levels for them to thrive, they go into a state of dormancy and wait for things to improve. Think of it as akin to hibernation.
 
From the Los Angeles Times  Feb 19, 2013:
Black bears have a method of hibernation previously unobserved in any mammal, researchers reported Thursday.

Although their body temperature drops only about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, their metabolism falls by more than 75%, allowing them to sleep through the winter without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating, researchers reported in the journal Science.
 
Day 13 - confusing results today.  Nitrite is a pale blue, almost zero, but ammonia was a bit lighter than 0.5ppm, maybe 0.35-0.4 or thereabouts.
 
You predicted this back in post #161, didn't you TTA.  I wonder if this is what Dr Tim's meant about the API kit not going under 0.5ppm as well.  I am starting to wonder why I bother with test kits lol
 
You recommended I do a 50% water change at this point - are you sure?  Won't that remove some of my bacteria?
 
The need to avoid a water change when dosing bottled bacteria is due to the fact that once you pour in the bacteria, it is in the water initially and not attached to anything more than the material it came on in the bottle. It takes a bit of time for the bacteria to end up attached to tank related surfaces, including filter media. So you refrain from early stage water changes so that you do not remove the bacteria you just added. However, your bacteria has been in the tank long enough to be attached. So you are safe.

My suggestion for the water change is based on the idea that it would reset your tank some. if there is something in the tank but not your tap water, the water change should mitigate it enough for you to pinpoint the nature/source of the problem better.

I think your reports here do bear out that there could be an issue with the API, and perhaps other brand, salicylate based tests. From what I have been able to determine, the salicylate method can use somewhat different ingredients and proportions to get the results. So different kits seem to contain somewhat different reagents. Moreover, some of the things in tanks can and do cause problems. The most notable of these is iron, but there are others. Many would need to be at levels we should not reach in tanks, but not all of them. Further, I have not run across and data on how smaller quantities of several of the interfering items might be additive. That is if you have several of them, none of which alone would be a problem, but combined they might.

This is one good reason why every tank is almost a unique situation unto itself. I would still maintain that you are having test kit issues rather than the level of ammonia it would appear is there. if you look at the facts, what other explanation could there be?

You are not adding more ammonia, you clearly have some bacteria at work as demonstrated by dropping ammonia and rising then dropping nitrites. We have the fact that the API kit just showed a rise in ammonia day to day in the absence of added ammonia or anything dying in the tank needs to be explained. And there are only a few possibilities:

1. You are doing the test wrong. But I doubt by this stage you would be. You have too much experience tasting now.

2. More ammonia is getting in some way of which you are unaware. I doubt this is happening either. Water changes with water that contains chloramines might add some ammonia as you are not using a dechlor with ammonia binders. But you are not changing water. Besides the amount of ammonia created by breaking down chloramines in a cycled tank is not an issue as the bacteria are able to handle the small amount of ammonia that gets created. However, one can not rule out this possibility 100%. I would say its possible but highly unlikely. And even if it were the reason, your bacteria should be able to catch up pretty quickly and eliminate the problem.

3. Something in your water is interfering with test accuracy. This is a real possibility given your GH and KH readings. We know you have "stuff" in the water to produce these readings but we don't know exactly what the various minerals/chemicals/ions/etc you actually have are. One of the most common causes of color issues with the tests is turbidity in the water. Basically, other things in the water affect the color appearance because they cloud the water some. The more clouding, the harder it becomes to get a true color.

4. The test kit could be inaccurate at lower levels, especially during cycling. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence for this. Dr. H certainly has noticed this problem as well. If we assume for a minute that there is some validity to the ammonium chloride/test problems or low false readings during fishless cycling, this would seem to be a good explanation for what you are seeing. However, I can't find any direct scientific documentation of this problem related to specific kits. I can only find the info on what can interfere with the test in general.

5. Most of the other explanations I might add do not apply. For example high levels of free ammonia or very high nitrites would both stall a cycle, but you have neither. Expired test kits would be a problem, but your's are new. etc. etc.

So once again I am going to fall back to nitrite readings. Let me offer a more in depth recipe to follow for now:

Test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in the tank(remember to shake the heck out of the nitrate bottles). Then do a 50% water change using dechlor and test again. Also test your tap water (dechlor it first). This will let you be sure if you are adding any nitrogen to the tank out of the tap. Then, wait about 15 minutes for the water to mix in the tank and test it all again.

In theory, if you know the levels in the tank, doing a 50% water change should cut the numbers about in half. Of course this would be impacted by the presence of anything in the tap water. This means if you test .5 ppm of ammonia in the tank, changing half the water should cut the ammonia down to about .25 ppm unless your tap contains more than that. If your tap has .25 ppm or less, then after the water change your test kit should show less ammonia. If it doesn't, you have probably discovered it is test kit error.

If your nitrite is behaving as it should during a fishless cycle and your nitrate is as well, then I have to fallback once again on the idea that its the ammonia test results that are out of whack and not to be trusted.

As snazy has noted, and I have also commented on, is that often how fish are behaving can be as good an indicator of what is up as are test kit results. Unfortunately, that is no help in a fishless cycle. And lets not forget in all this that the nitrite kit reads ions, so a trace reading means there is almost no nitrite-n at all- .25 ppm ion becomes about .076 ppm-n. If your nitrites hit 0 in the face of constant readings of .25-.50 ppm of ammonia, it has to be test kit error.

Basically. I am saying when we work backwards from your readings in the hunt for an explanation, we keep coming up to with the most likely explanation being invalid ammonia test readings. I am happy to hear other suggestions which might explain the results you are getting from anybody who can offer another reasonable explanation.
 
I did add another 16 drops yesterday after I got the zero readings so the ammonia has not come out of nowhere, apologies if I didn't mention it.
 
Bearing in mind that the Salifert test isn't working either on tank water or plain tap water,  I think that any problems must exist in the tap water, so I think a water change would only reset nitrates.
 
It's too late for a water change today so I will test again tomorrow and see if that ammonia reading is gone.  I'll test nitrates too.
 
Just out of curiosity, but when you say the Salifert test didn't work, what exactly isn't working? For example, some tests when the readings are off the scale the test can handle, show all funny colours that aren't on the card.
To test if the tap water is the problem, just buy some bottled distilled or ro water, test it straight and if 0 ammonia, set another dose but this time add a drop or two of the ammonium chloride, test again, is there more ammonia showing? If yes, the test is working. If there was ammonia in the first place, then the test isn't working and it's not your tap water the problem. I honestly never heard of such a thing but anything is possible these days.
Then if the tank water is showing let's say 1ppm ammonia, fill the test tube with 50/50 tank water/tap water and test again(or the bought water you know for sure doesn't have ammonia) Does it show you less ammonia this way?
 
The Salifert test is showing these results:
Tank water (expected ~2ppm ammonia solution, API reading 0.5ppm): Salifert test clear.
Tap water (expected 2ppm ammonia solution): Salifert test clear
Tap water (expected 4ppm ammonia solution, API reading 1.0ppm): Salifert test 0.25ppm
Tap water (expected 8ppm ammonia solution): Salifert test colour appeared to be an orange that matched the >2ppm chart but much, much fainter. 
In all cases I can see filaments of a solid precipitate suspended in the solution, they get more orange in colour with more ammonia too.
 
Testing with distilled water is a good idea, could I use the household de-ionised water I use in my iron?
 
Try any water different from the tap.
Other than that, if you fill a test tube with 5ml tap water and drop a couple of ammonium chloride drops directly in to it, then test. It really should turn dark green on the API, not sure what the salifert colours are supposed to be. So see if it detects higher levels of ammonia. It's very odd but I'd go through the trouble as you need to know that in the future when you've got fish in there.
Also, did you try dilluting the tank water to see if it shows less ammonia, for example 50/50
 

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