Cycling Tank - Seems To Have Stalled

[lm118]

Hi, I've been cycling my tank for about a month with some media from my old tank and ammonia.

I am trying to get to the stage where 4-5ppm of ammonia is gone within 12 hours, that’s what you're supposed to be looking for in order to say the tank is cycled isn't it?

For the past couple of weeks I've been dosing the tank up to 4-5ppm of ammonia, and it does go in time, but always takes about 1/2 days.

Is there anything else I can do? Could a slow rate of water flow from the filter be slowing the bacteria from breaking the ammonia down? I bought a 2nd hand Juwel Rekord 70, and the internal filter that came with it seems a bit slow to me compared to my last filter. When doing an online stocking calculator (FishForums.net.com) it said that I needed to up my filtration (I think the current filter included is a Juwel bioflow 280 from what I can figure out). Does anyone have any experience with these filters?

Thanks

 

[fluttermoth]

The first thing to try is a big water change; that often gives things a kickstart.

What temperature and pH is the tank running at? Higher temps and pH levels make cycles run faster.

 

[CezzaXV]

Just keep at it. You're almost there but not quite.

I have very soft water and a low pH, which caused my cycle to stall a few times. Eventually I started adding bicarbonate of soda every day to raise the pH and it picked right back up.

As long as your cycle isn't slowing down though (the amount of time it's taking to process ammonia/nitrite isn't increasing) then there's nothing to worry about. Hang on in there!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'd drop the dosing level a bit as well.  4-5ppm is higher than the bacteria actually prefer. 3ppm would be fair easier on the bacteria... once that cycles in 12 hours, you can increase the dose to 4-5ppm, or start by stocking a bit slower than all the fish at once.

 

[lm118]

thanks for the advice guys! I've changed about 75% of the water, and added about 3ppm of ammonia, so we'll see how the figures are looking tonight. Nearly out of the 2 ammonia solutions in the testing kit though, i hope it hurries up!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Get a medicine syringe, like for giving children elixir - and use 2.5ml in the test tube.  Then use 4 drops instead of 8 (Assuming you have the API kit).

 

[lm118]

great idea, thanks eaglesaquarium!