Hi

[candrews999]

Hi all I'm new to fish keeping. I'm currently trying to do a fishless cycle for the last week. I have a 55 litre tank 40x40x40 cm. I have a couple of live plants in there as well as some plastic ones. Temperature is 28°c. I have dosed up to 2.0ppm ammonia and it's just not dropping. Oh after a couple of days I took the carbon cartridge out of the filter after reading somewhere this can slow things down. I replaced the carbon with sponge. Anyone any ideas why literally nothing is happening....sorry for the long post!!

Thanks for any advice

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[fluttermoth]

Do you have any idea of the pH and hardness of your water? Soft, acidic water cycles go slower and are much slower to start.

A week isn't that long, tbf

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Your post is not long

As Fluttermoth said, 1 week isn't a long time. It can take anywhere between 2 weeks and 3 months or more for filters to develop enough beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia into nitrite, into nitrate. However, most tanks are cycled in 4-5 weeks. Warm water, which you have, plus lots of oxygen and water movement all help speed things along.

You should notice a change after about 2 weeks, at which time the ammonia levels will start to go down and the nitrite levels will start to go up. Then a couple of weeks after this the nitrite will start to go down and nitrates go up. When the ammonia and nitrite have both gone up, and then come back down to 0, the filters will be cycled and you can add fish.

 

[candrews999]

Thanks for the replies. My ph is 7.6 7.4 high range although I think this is down to my gravel from p@h. Tap water is ph 6.8. Hardness is very soft 1.82 clarke

Thanks
Carl

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