Cycle Has Halted

[farty1025]

Hi, i have been on this site many many times for the last 12 weeks or so but i have only just registered.I am doing the fishless cycle and its been dragging on for the last 12 weeks and im at my wits end and thinking of packing it in all together i have my kids asking me everyday when can we get fish and i dont know what to tell them.Could i add some fish now say 6 danios or some black skirt tetras
I REALLY NEED SOME HELP HERE .

my tank holds 70l temperture 29 degrees
i have a fluval 2 plus filter with two foam sponges and one finer sponge in at the moment the filter has a clogging indicator on it which pops up when clogged i have cleaned the filter media in tank water.
sand substrate
plastic plants
bogwood
two resin ornaments


ph 7.8
ammonia goes down to 0ppm in about 8 hours. It has been doing this for 6 weeks
nitrite taking 16 hrs to process. has been doing this for about five weeks
nitrates 80 they have never risen any higher than this even though i have 20-40ppm in my tap water
kh 10 but has went down to 0 so i done a large water change
gh 12

 

[LionessN3cubs]

Hi, i have been on this site many many times for the last 12 weeks or so but i have only just registered.I am doing the fishless cycle and its been dragging on for the last 12 weeks and im at my wits end and thinking of packing it in all together i have my kids asking me everyday when can we get fish and i dont know what to tell them.Could i add some fish now say 6 danios or some black skirt tetras
I REALLY NEED SOME HELP HERE .

my tank holds 70l temperture 29 degrees
i have a fluval 2 plus filter with two foam sponges and one finer sponge in at the moment the filter has a clogging indicator on it which pops up when clogged i have cleaned the filter media in tank water.
sand substrate
plastic plants
bogwood
two resin ornaments


ph 7.8
ammonia goes down to 0ppm in about 8 hours. It has been doing this for 6 weeks
nitrite taking 16 hrs to process. has been doing this for about five weeks
nitrates 80 they have never risen any higher than this even though i have 20-40ppm in my tap water
kh 10 but has went down to 0 so i done a large water change
gh 12

Mine took FOREVER at the end too....what turned it around for me is doing a MASSIVE water change (80-90%). After that it has been all clear in less than 12 hours since then. Matter of fact my ammonia is now processing in UNDER 8 hours and nitrite in about 10 hours.. Maybe you should try that?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there, welcome to the forum, congrats on doing the fishless cycle, sorry you're having some problems but we've got people out of stickier fixes than this before so I'm sure we can get you sorted, please don't give in and get some fish, give us a couple of days at least to try and work out what's gone on.

First port of call, take all your test readings now (pH, KH, Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) then do the biggest water change you can manage, 100% if possible, test all your levels again, add 5ppm of ammonia, leave it 12 hrs then test again. Let us know the results at each stage, it will build a clearer picture of what's gone on.

The last bit of nitrite is often stubborn and can take a while to shift, we have been discussing recently weather the stage you are at now (and have been at for some weeks) is actually the end of the cycle or if you need to wait until the nitrite drops in 12 hrs, hop over to the scientific forum and read the thread 'when is a cycle finished' which should help you.

i think you may actually be finished but i would like the results as above before making any firm decision.

 

[farty1025]

In the last couple of weeks i have done 2 90% water changes and it hasnt budged

 

[martyn413]

Hi Farty,

welcome to the site.

How often are you topping up with ammonia?

Martyn

 

[farty1025]

I have been on a strict routine of adding my ammonia at 8 in the evening and testing at 8 in the morning hoping that my nitrites would be down to 0ppm and then i could set up the tank to go get my fish so i will leave it to 8.00pm before i test and do a water change and test after twelve. the funny thing is after about 28 days my nitrites were processing in 14 hrs but has since went backwards

Hi Farty,

welcome to the site.

How often are you topping up with ammonia?

Martyn

every 24hours on the dot

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have a read of this http/www.fishforums.net/content/Scientif...ycle-Finished-/

when you test your nitrite after 12 hrs what reading do you get? what is your pH and KH at now?

 

[farty1025]

after 12 hrs nitrite is 0.50ppm and sometimes its at 1.0 ppm kh 5 it gets lower each day so i do a large water change when it gets close to 0
and ph 7.8

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'm surprised that your KH is dropping so much, I would try buffering up the KH with some crushed coral or baking soda, get the pH up towards the high 7. somethings and see if that speeds things up a bit.

if you can get to a point where it's at 0.25ppm after 12 hrs for several consequetive days then i would suspect that would be close enough to safely add fish, 0.5 or 1 is a bit too high though

you're definatley close to finishing though!

 

[farty1025]

Its really starting to get me down the tank was for my sons birthday that was three weeks ago he has got to a stage that he thinks i dont want to get him fish.

 

[farty1025]

my LFS are at a loss to whats happening with my tank they told me to lower the ammonia to maybe 3ppm because they said that 5ppm is recomended for your tank only if your considering fully loading your tank but 3ppm would be ok if i was going to add 6 danios of some sort or 4-6 black skirt tetras maybe

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'm really sorry to hear that, i can totally understand how you don't want your son to feel let down by you. it's important to keep your promises to kids,

however it's also important to teach kids the responsibility that comes with looking after animals correctly.

i would suggest the following then.

remmeber when we say a tank is cycled, this means that the rate of ammonia consumption is equal to that of ammonia production. So the bacteria can use up all the ammonia that is produced. we use 5ppm of ammonia as a safe level, representative of a heavy fish load for the tank. In reality a full tank of fish will produce closer to 3ppm we estimate.

if you only half stock the tank then you can be cycled at the point when ammonia consumption for 2.5ppm of ammonia and nitrite happens in 12 hrs. So if you try a big water change to re-set everything, then add 2.5ppm of ammonia and see how quickly this processes, you may find that the ABacs and NBacs are capable of handling this in 12 hrs. If this is the case then providing you stock the tank lightly, you would be able to get some fish.


Try it as an experiemnt for one day and see how it happens.

 

[farty1025]

Thankyou so much MISSWIGGLE for your help i had been hoping you would give me some pointers as you seem to type alot LOL. So come 8pm i will do a large water change and charge it up t0 2,5ppm and see what happens.HERES BLOODY HOPING

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lol, got my fingers crossed for you.

 

[waterdrop]

Really fun that Lioness answered, your case sounds identical to hers (mine too for that matter) -- there are plenty of fishless cyclers ready to scream after a few months. The N-bacs can be really slow to develop.

The experiment idea sounds good - only thing is be forwarned that sometimes even what seems like a "massive" water change can for some reason not fully clear out nitrites and nitrates (they almost seem to hang out in the filter media or gravel or something and reappear after the water change, not having gone down as much as I always expected - just my experience, may not be yours..) - and this can make this sort of experiment frustrating.

On the other hand I -do- think you are on the right track - in that there is a very good chance a medium-small stocking would do fine with where the filter is now. Lioness will remember this point in the process clearly I think - but then she was lucky in that finally nitrites started dropping to zero in 12 hours, right about that time I think.

~~waterdrop~~