Am I Doing Something Wrong?

[andymiller6891]

I have a juwel 120l tank, approx 6 weeks sinse i brought it, it has 2 3-4inch pleks, 3 2-3inch sucking loaches, 5 neons and 5 2-3inch sailfin mollys.

my problem is ammonia levels are going around the 1-2 daily with the api master test kit, im am having to do a 60l water change daily to keep the ammonia levels down but cant seem to get them down to 0-0.5.

i was told by the person who brought the tank that it was cycled, but found out after i had set it up that it hadnt been used for 12 months, so any bacteria would have been dead long ago.

i have a 6 week old eheim biopower 200 and a 2 week old eheim 2126 thermo canister.

i am adding 80l worth of stress syme every 3-4 days but still the levels dont seem to be dropping.

i ripped out the juwel internal filter/heater job once i found out that the pads were dead and added the eheim 2 pro.

bare in mind the 120l is only a temporary fixture while i cycle the gravel and filters, i have a rio240 planned once the levels are down.


so what can i do to lower the cycle time or is it just a case of waiting and keep doing the water changes??

 

[DrRob]

You're in a fairly hefty fish in cycle there. There's a great advice section here

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/224306-fish-in-cycling/

if you haven't seen it already.

Sadly you're into the waiting game until your bacteria can get established. On the bright side it means that once you're sorted you can use the media to seed your rio 240.

If you happen to be near someone with an established tank who can be persuaded to part with some mature media you could accelerate things that way.

 

[andymiller6891]

both the biopower and pro2 will be going over to the rio when i get it, the original juwel system will be going back in the 120l as i kept hold of it ready for resale.

 

[coldcazzie]

Hi Andy,

I have a juwel 120l tank, approx 6 weeks sinse i brought it, it has 2 3-4inch pleks, 3 2-3inch sucking loaches, 5 neons and 5 2-3inch sailfin mollys.

Do you know what kind of plecs they are? Is there any chance you can rehome these somewhere, even if only temporarily, while you cycle the tank? PLecs are poop machines so they will be producing a lot of ammonia.

my problem is ammonia levels are going around the 1-2 daily with the api master test kit, im am having to do a 60l water change daily to keep the ammonia levels down but cant seem to get them down to 0-0.5.

That is a problem. To reduce them further you can consider doing another water change each day (ie, one in the evening and one in the morning). If you do this, don't make them smaller, keep them almost the same size. Or you can do larger changes each time you change the water - in the region of 100L each time instead of 60L, and see whether that makes a difference.

Do you have nitrite and nitrate test kits? Can you give readings for those?

i am adding 80l worth of stress syme every 3-4 days but still the levels dont seem to be dropping.

Honestly, that won't help much. Despite the sales blurb, they don't really add anything of value to the tank. By all means keep adding it until you run out, but don't put any faith in it's ability to fix your problem.

i ripped out the juwel internal filter/heater job once i found out that the pads were dead and added the eheim 2 pro.

Did you use the pads out of the internal Juwel filter in the new eheim filter? If not then that will have set your cycle back a bit - the bacteria are in the filter pads so you'll have thrown some of them out by removing the pads.

so what can i do to lower the cycle time or is it just a case of waiting and keep doing the water changes??

This is pretty much all you can do, apart from rehoming some of the fish to lower the amount of ammonia being produced.

 

[andymiller6891]

yes i have tested nitrates and nitrites with the api kit and it seems to always read zero.

and no the juwel one came without pads as the previous owner kept them, so i ripped it out in place of the external eheim.

 

[coldcazzie]

Ahh, good call.

If you are not reading any nitrites or nitrates then you're still fairly early in your cycle I'm afraid

 

[andymiller6891]

i believe my pleks are leopard pleks, as they are orange and spotted black.

will it decrease cycle time by a reasonable margain if i remove the pleks??

 

[DrRob]

No, not really, but it'll significantly reduce the risk of losing something.