Cycling Problem

[Gremily]

Hi I have a bit of a cycling problem, not sure what to do about it so any help is appreciated.

I have a mature 120l tank from which I took some mature filter media and put it in my new 180l tank.
I then added about 5ppm of ammonia to the new tank and it seemed to drop to just about zero in a day. I live in quite a softwater area so the pH had dropped to around 6 at this point so I did a large water change to bring it back up, after doing this the ammonia was very low on my test (I had to compare it to a test from a mature tank to notice a difference). I presumed this ammonia would go very quickly but the next morning (yesterday) the reading seemed to be the same.
I thought the ammonia would be gone by then so in the evening I added more mature media which I thought would at least get rid of the last bit of ammonia. But just done a test now and it seems to still be the same very low reading (<0.6).
I really don't know what to do now, I'm concerned that the bacteria from the original media has somehow died and the same thing has happened with the new media.

Thanks in advance!

 

[gs090]

Hello,
How long have you been trying to cycle? Even when moving media, I find it takes several weeks to a month to cycle an aquarium. I find that it never really works until you put some hardy fish in to get things really going. There are mixed feelings out there anout using actual ammonia. Have you tried any of the additives to increase the bacteria? To be honest, I find that none of these things work, and just keep doing water changes over that first month. I have been very satisfied with my biowheel set up. 0 ammonia always even with a slightly overstocked tank. It lookes like your bacteria levels are not optimal yet.

 

[rdd1952]

I would check the pH again to make sure it is up to at least the mid 6s and then raise the ammonia back up to 3 to 4 ppm. I'm not certain why the cycle has seemed to stall.

 

[Gremily]

Thanks for the replies guys but I found what the problem was.
I'm using a Nutrafin (Hagen) ammonia test and it seems to vary colour depending on something (pH I'm guessing). It's not a very noticeable difference (I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't compared it to a test from another tank). I ended up testing 3 tanks this afternoon, the two tanks mentioned in my last post and then another mature tank. The tests from the other mature tank and the one I was cycling looked the same and the one from the first mature tank was a tiny bit less orangey than them.