Cycling my tank

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The Dog

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Hiya Lads, Ladettes.

Ive been cycling my first tank.

I started with Dr Tims Denitrifying solution and fed with Ammonia to 2ppm.

I then tested for a week or so.

My Ammonia went down but stalled at 0. 25ppm - 0.50ppm. My Nitrites stayed at 0 throughout (annoyingly) then the Nitrates blew up 160ppm.

I carried out a 50% water change last night and Dosed with ammonia to 2ppm and 20hrs late it had come down 0.5.

I might be confusing myself here but I expected to see a rise in Nitrites (none)

I have topped up using API Streszyme+ and would hope tomorrow to see the ammonia lowered significantly, but i wont be surprised if it doesnt.

Any ideas please on how i can assist whet I'm doing already

Kind regards

D
 
honestly I've never been a fan of chemicals and I'm in and out of the hobby whenever I move
my way of cycling a tank is to simply let it sit with a sponge filter with active carbon inside it with an adjustable valve on it...that'll keep your ph up so your bacteria can grow
do 2 20% water changes a week and just use powder fish food after each water change...
throw some plants in it specially grasses as they will turn yellow and then come back to life when your tank is cycled...
if you're going to be chasing your water parameters you're literally going to have a part-time job just testing the water..
the green in your plants will tell you when your tank is doing fine
or you can chase water parameters too
50% water change...
then fixing the problem you just created with super low gh/minerals etc...by adding a squirt of DR tims, DR Cory and DR fritz hell...everyone is a fish tank doctor these days xD
rivers arent "fixed" so my suggestion...stop putting them DR's into your fish tank...
grab a a few dwarf hairgrass plants and put them in your tank and just be patient
also take a look at this video...
the guy is very informative in different topics
my water changes are as follow: run the tap for a couple minutes then change about 5gal (gravel vacuum) on my 45gal straight tap....
let it run through the filter for about 1h then take 1 gal from the 10gal tank and fill it back up straight from the 45gal
then I just fill the 45gal back up..no fish die this way...and I do have carbon filters in both tank sumps just in case...
my 45 gal is always between 6.9 and 7.2 ph and my 10gal goes from 7 to 8ph...whenever the 10gal reaches 8 it's when I change the water on both...
sometimes is 1 week..sometimes 2 longest I've gone without changing was about a month...I guess it depends how much crap comes in the tap water...
I changed the water on friday and the ph on my 10gal is at 7.66 right now
when people start chasing stuff like tds / gh / nitri/ates phosphates ammonia and the list goes on....it's when fish start dying...
grab a ph monitor on amazon it'll cost you double of what a ph pen costs (around 45 bucks) but looks a lot nicer and it's ph in real time
set a max value for ph as it's literally tied with gh and at that value change 10% of the water...it's that simple
PS: my tank has around 20 neon tetras, 2 hillstream loaches a whole bunch of black bar endlers, 5 zebra plecos, 2 dwarf pea puffers, 3 amano shrimp and a few neocaridina, some rainbow forktail, habrosus cory, and dwarf catfish
 
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If the ammonia level is dropping to 0ppm after 24 hours and the nitrates are going up, but there is no nitrite, then it sounds like the filter is cycled.

How long have you been cycling this tank for?
Does it have any live aquarium plants in?
Did you use gravel or filter media from another aquarium?
 
Morning guys, thanks for the advice.

I have deopped a good amount of plants into the aquarium, not planted as i left them in the growing media for added BB. I have a layer of aqua soild on the bottom (in bags) and that is covered my a god layer of flourite Black. Its been going for just over a couple of weeks.

Im running an Fx6 and the plants look lush
 
The plants could be using the ammonia.

If you have a well planted tank, you don't normally cycle it. Just let the plants grow for a few weeks and test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH before adding a few fish. Let the fish live in the tank for a few weeks and if the water is good, add some more.
 

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