Cycle has stalled and can't figure out why!!!

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Sky042

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ok I was doing a fishless cycle on my tank and for the first few days it was going ok I had already seen nitrites and the cycle appeared to be progressing well.

Fast forward about a week all the sudden my ammonia levels stopped going down and my nitrite was at 2.0 and had not moved one iota. Checked the temperature discovered it had gotten to 90 so I backed it down to 82.

I added a cascade 700 filter to the wet/dry that was already on the tank(the cascade was brand new)

I then re-seeded by taking filter floss from an established filter(my fluval 304) and shaking it in the water of the 54(cleaned it off in the water) and then stuck the floss itself in my wet/dry filter.

checked the next day no reduction of ammonia. However the nitrites were now at 0ppm. checked the ammonia levels for the next 3 days and they hadn't moved at all.

Last night(around 11pm) I took basically all the filter floss out of the fluval(time to change media) and immediately transfered all the floss(3 big handfuls) into the 54 tank shook them out made the water like mud then left one chunk in the skimmer box(to force it into the wet/dry) and left the rest to float around the tank. filters had the water clear in about an hour or two. Fast forward about 18 hours. I checked the ammonia and it's unchanged still sitting around 8ppm and 0ppm of nitrite.

This basically defies everything we know about cycling. With that much of a culture added last night there should have been a drop in ammonia levels or at least a noticeable level of nitrite.

I'm really at my wits end so I'm hoping TFF can provide some suggestions. I can say for sure the ammonia level is not too high since I cycled my 46 at 8ppm. the only other chemical in the tank was jungle labs insta chlor which does NOT lock ammonia but that was a few weeks back when I filled the tank.

Tank specs
54 USG Corner Bow
Temp 82
Amiracle Wet/Dry filter with abotu 3.5 gallons of bio balls
Cascade 700 cannister filter.
There is a nitrate reading of about 80ppm but I believe thats left over from when the cycle started and was moving along.
 
same thing happened to me when i cycled my 56 gal. ammonia was off the charts, but nitrite dropped to 0. i did an 80% water change to get my ammonia back to a measurable level, let it sit for 24 hours, and checked it again, it was lower than right after water change. added 1/4 of the amount i had been and next day all was 0. i think maybe i had overwhelmed my bacterias ability to convert ammonia or something. not sure really it was my first fishless cycle but added a full load and have perfect readings now 2 weeks later. hth
 
Sounds odd.

Personally, I'd do the old 50% water change, and keep going.

Seems like fishless cycling isn't going too well for you recently. :huh: I understand the benefits of fishless cycling, but out of curiosity ... since you have mature tanks, have you considered just a 'regular' cycle?

Before people cringe :), let me say that I've started up a couple of 20 highs this spring (with mature media, substrate, and a bunch of plants), and was shocked at how well they cycled -- I never saw a spike over 0.25 ppm, ... if you could call that a spike.
 
well I did a 20% the other day and 50% last night. I'm gonna test in a little bit and see if the levels have changed.
 

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