Cycling Seems To Have Stopped

[ziggyboy]

I have been fishless cycling my tank for about 8 days now. My cycling seems to have stalled and my plants don't look as vibrant as they were when I got them. Here are the events that lead to this. Please tell me where I'm going wrong.

Tank: 55 gallon, 4 foot long
Filter: canister
Lighting: total of 100 watts (1 x 40W, 2 x 30W) all 10,000K

Day 1 to 4
- fishless cycling which seems to have been working slowly
- been keeping my ammonia at 5 ppm

Day 5
- added a DIY CO2 system which seems to have been working properly

Day 6
- added 2 pieces of bogwood
- added half-load of plants

Day 7
- water turns yellow from tannin and my pH dropped to 6 (maybe even lower)
- manually increased pH using baking soda to 7

It's now day 8 and it seems that my plants are less vibrant but most important of all, my ammonia has not gone down for the past 2 days. Could I have killed the beneficial bacteria by dropping the pH to 6 or suffocated it by injecting too much CO2? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i assume that the pH of 6 is the lowest reading on your chart? you need to find the exact reading, some test kits go lower or alternatively get a pH probe (ebay, not too expensive, maybe £20) which will test it as low as it can go.

if the pH is below 5.5 then the nitrifying bacteria you had got so far will have died off, however a different sort of bacteria grow at this level, it will still do the same function and can still be cultivated by fishless cycling however it's much slower in development.

also if you do cultivate this bacteria and find fish which are happy at such a low pH (possible but hard work!) and then the pH rises up above 5.5 then it will die off and the tank will cycle again.

so you need to find out what your pH is exactly to see if this is the case, then decide if you actively want to keep it below 5.5 or work to raise it up.

if your gonna raise it up then stop fishless cycling, just get the pH adjusted to where you want and start over again

 

[rdd1952]

Nitrification all but stops once the pH drops to 6.0 or below. What is the pH of your tank water? Are you using any chemicals except dechlorinator? The driftwood is probably what is causing th pH to drop. I would imagine that you have no buffering capacity so the driftwood is having a maximum effect. You might want to try to find so tufa rock to help buffer the water and keep the pH up.

 

[mark.w.jones]

Plants also really slow a fishless cycle as they absorb ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. CO2 injection can also lower pH if running at too high a level. I know it's too late now but you would have been better to have completely cycled and stocked your tank before adding your plants and CO2 injection. Hindsight is a great thing thou

 

[rdd1952]

Everyone says that plants slow the cycling process but I haven't experienced that. My 75 gallon was the first tank I ever did a fishless cycle on and I added all my plants the first week. It was almost a text book cycle if there is such a thing as it took right at 3 weeks. Since then, I've done 2 more with plants and had about the same results.

 

[ziggyboy]

Ok thanks. For now I'll keep my plants.

I did a 50% water change and added ammonia again before going to bed to reach 5 ppm. My ammonia decreased from last night so it seems to be doing fine.My pH is now about 6.6 and my KH is 70 ppm, GH is about 150 ppm.

Just for fun I have my webcam on my aquarium broadcasting all over the Internet: http/www.mindfault.org/webcam/
Just a minor note: I will only be able to broadcast this during business hours in Sydney. I will be switching it off during the evenings...so if you can't see anything it means it's nighttime here (don't forget I'm half across the globe from most of you!!).

 

[mark.w.jones]

Everyone says that plants slow the cycling process but I haven't experienced that. My 75 gallon was the first tank I ever did a fishless cycle on and I added all my plants the first week. It was almost a text book cycle if there is such a thing as it took right at 3 weeks. Since then, I've done 2 more with plants and had about the same results.

But you haven't ever done a cycle without plants thou so how can you say that?

 

[rdd1952]

Everyone says that plants slow the cycling process but I haven't experienced that. My 75 gallon was the first tank I ever did a fishless cycle on and I added all my plants the first week. It was almost a text book cycle if there is such a thing as it took right at 3 weeks. Since then, I've done 2 more with plants and had about the same results.

But you haven't ever done a cycle without plants thou so how can you say that?

That's true but I can't imagine one cycling any faster than 3 weeks even without plants. Actually, the one time I tried to cycle without plants as an experiment (actually nothing in the tank except water, filter, heater and airstones) nothing ever happened. After 18 days the ammonia was still where it started and there was no nitrite at all. I finally gave up. So from my experience, an unplanted tank will never cycle but I know that isn't the case either.

 

[mark.w.jones]

That's true but I can't imagine one cycling any faster than 3 weeks even without plants. Actually, the one time I tried to cycle without plants as an experiment (actually nothing in the tank except water, filter, heater and airstones) nothing ever happened. After 18 days the ammonia was still where it started and there was no nitrite at all. I finally gave up. So from my experience, an unplanted tank will never cycle but I know that isn't the case either.

Very bizarre. In my experience, seeding your new filter with bacteria from a mature filter by adding sponge and ceramic media is really the way to go. I must admit I've always wondered in a "bare" tank, as you describe, where the bacteria come from in the first place. Surely you need to intruduce them yourself? Who knows

 

[rdd1952]

Very bizarre. In my experience, seeding your new filter with bacteria from a mature filter by adding sponge and ceramic media is really the way to go. I must admit I've always wondered in a "bare" tank, as you describe, where the bacteria come from in the first place. Surely you need to intruduce them yourself? Who knows

I agree that seeding is the way to go, if you have access to media. The "where does the bacteria come from" thing has been discussed a few times and it seems that most people think they get in the tank via the water although I'm not totally sold on that idea. I know for certain that the one "bare tank" I tried did absolutely nothing. Of course, they obviously get in the tank some how because we cycle tanks all the time without seed bacteria.

 

[ziggyboy]

Thanks for the replies. Just a little update.

It's around day 17 now if I'm not mistaken. My ammonia is getting gobbled up every 12 hours and my nitrites are off the charts. I hope my tank gets cycled before the weekend so I can get some fish!

 

[mark.w.jones]

Thanks for the replies. Just a little update.

It's around day 17 now if I'm not mistaken. My ammonia is getting gobbled up every 12 hours and my nitrites are off the charts. I hope my tank gets cycled before the weekend so I can get some fish!

My tank took 7 days before the ammonia was dropping in 12 hours then a further 14 days before the nitrite was dropping in 12 hours so you have an outside chance. Don't stop adding you ammonia once your nitrites have dropped though otherwise your bacteria will have nothing to feed on and will all die off.

 

[rdd1952]

Thanks for the replies. Just a little update.

It's around day 17 now if I'm not mistaken. My ammonia is getting gobbled up every 12 hours and my nitrites are off the charts. I hope my tank gets cycled before the weekend so I can get some fish!

My tank took 7 days before the ammonia was dropping in 12 hours then a further 14 days before the nitrite was dropping in 12 hours so you have an outside chance. Don't stop adding you ammonia once your nitrites have dropped though otherwise your bacteria will have nothing to feed on and will all die off.

The 7 and 14 days are exactly what my 75 gallon tank did. Ziggyboy, it sounds as if you are very close to finished.

 

[ziggyboy]

The 7 and 14 days are exactly what my 75 gallon tank did. Ziggyboy, it sounds as if you are very close to finished.

A little update...

It's been 4 weeks now. I put a UV sterilizer on my tank somewhere in week 3 and I have confirmed that it was the cause of my cycling stalling. 4ppm of ammonia was dropping to 0 every 12 hours but my nitrites were fluctuating between 4-8ppm for something like 7 days! When I removed the sterilizer 4 days ago my nitrites were down to 0.25 ppm THIS MORNING! I think I'm getting fish this weekend!!!!!! Hopefully it goes down to 0ppm tomorrow.