Doing A Fishless Cycle But Ammonia Levels Aren't Dropping..?

[Reeveso]

Hey this is my first aquarium and I'm doing a fishless cycle.

I followed the fishless cycling guide that this forum has, but it's been 5 days and my ammonia levels are still super-high (around 5ish)

The exact levels are hard to tell b/c of how you have to color match it, but it's only slightly lighter than when I started, and still VERY green.

My temperature is also about 85 degrees and the only air it's getting is from the filter which gives a decent amount of bubbles.

Can anybody tell me whats wrong? Am I missing something?

 

[Colin_T]

you aren't doing anything wrong. It takes a couple of weeks before the ammonia drops down to 0. Then it will take a week or two more for the nitrite to go up and down.

 

[doresy]

Hi and well done for going down the fishLESS route

Ok so you are doing nothing wrong so far. Every set up can be very different (my last one took 8 weeks to complete!) The ammonia feeding bacteria can take up to 3 weeks to start developing. When the ammonia levels start to drop then you can start to test for nitrite. By hey, if you think that it has taken a long time for the ammonia to start dropping the nitrite munching bacteria takes about twice as long to develop!

Sit back now and just dream a while about what fish you will be getting and do the research and time will just fly by. No cutting corners now it'll be worth it in the end if you do it properly

 

[LosC519]

You can speed it up with Seachem Stability, all you need is a small bottle and it's cheap. Cycled my tank completely in 8 days.

 

[waterdrop]

Yup, I'm just like doresy. My son and I are cycling a tank right now and its been 19 days with no ammonia drop. It gives you time to do research on the million other things that are good to know about in the hobby!

 

[Colin_T]

don't let the ammonia levels get above 5ppm or the bacteria won't develop.
keep the oxygen levels high with lots of surface turbulence.

 

[Amunet]

Yeah if ammonia lvls get too high, it might cause the bacteria not to develop, but it sounds like your tank is doing just fine so far
Cycling a tank just takes a lot of patience.
And I have to disagree with Los... don't waste your money on any of that "Instant cycle" mess that sits on the counters and collects dust. Most of the time they're just completely useless and a waste of money. Use that couple of dollars to buy a plant for the tank heh.

Have you tested your pH? You might want to make sure it hasn't dropped below 6 just in case. A low pH will cause the bacteria to stall. It happened in our tanks so I had to use baking soda to raise it back up and it worked like a charm.

 

[Reeveso]

Awesome, thanks everyone I'll try all those things out.

I got some gravel from a local PetSmart that I put in there 2 days ago so hopefully that'll help.

Im going to go check my PH levels now.

Colin,

The article says to get it to 6ppm. I guess since he wrote that article everyone has figured out to NOT let it get that high?

 

[waterdrop]

Awesome, thanks everyone I'll try all those things out.

I got some gravel from a local PetSmart that I put in there 2 days ago so hopefully that'll help.

Im going to go check my PH levels now.

Colin,

The article says to get it to 6ppm. I guess since he wrote that article everyone has figured out to NOT let it get that high?

It's pretty hard to judge a single ppm with a hobby test kit. For example, the API ammonia test chart shows a shade of green labeled 4ppm and then a dark evergreen color labeled 8ppm. Deciding whether the green you get is 4ppm, 5ppm, 6ppm can be pretty hard. Luckily its more important just know that you are in that basic range and then watch for the color to drop toward yellow, meanwhile at some point when you feel it is dropping, you start testing for NO2 (nitrite) and see if it is still close to zero (blue in api test) or has spiked way up (darker purples). So its the -change- that you care about more than the absolute ppm number. Having said that though, you wouldn't want it to get up to 8ppm or higher as that could stall your cycle for various technical reasons.

Hope that helps more than it confuses! ~~waterdrop~~

 

[Reeveso]

Awesome, thanks everyone I'll try all those things out.

I got some gravel from a local PetSmart that I put in there 2 days ago so hopefully that'll help.

Im going to go check my PH levels now.

Colin,

The article says to get it to 6ppm. I guess since he wrote that article everyone has figured out to NOT let it get that high?

It's pretty hard to judge a single ppm with a hobby test kit. For example, the API ammonia test chart shows a shade of green labeled 4ppm and then a dark evergreen color labeled 8ppm. Deciding whether the green you get is 4ppm, 5ppm, 6ppm can be pretty hard. Luckily its more important just know that you are in that basic range and then watch for the color to drop toward yellow, meanwhile at some point when you feel it is dropping, you start testing for NO2 (nitrite) and see if it is still close to zero (blue in api test) or has spiked way up (darker purples). So its the -change- that you care about more than the absolute ppm number. Having said that though, you wouldn't want it to get up to 8ppm or higher as that could stall your cycle for various technical reasons.

Hope that helps more than it confuses! ~~waterdrop~~

Haha, yea that helps a lot, thanks. Like I said the green is starting to get "slightly" lighter - just not as fast as I'd hoped. I was hoping it would be getting yellow by now! I would say it's probably at about 4 right now or so from my best judgement.

They should set up labs that grow real beneficial bacteria in their own tanks, learn how to capture it, and sell it in a bottle..lol

 

[Miss Wiggle]

They should set up labs that grow real beneficial bacteria in their own tanks, learn how to capture it, and sell it in a bottle..lol

already done!

there's a number of aquarium suppliers offering these products, however the combined experiences of fishkeepers on this and other forums have found that virtually all of them are utter tosh and won't help in the slightest.

However if you fancy speeding it up, in the USA look for Bio-Spira, in the UK look for Bactinettes. These products both actually work for two main reasons

1 - they actually contain the correct species of bacteria (a lot don't)

2 - they are carefully transported and sold in appropriate conditions. i.e. refridgerated. If you find a lfs selling these from a fridge then chances are it's good to go, by the time it's spent more than a couple of days sat on a shelf the bacteria die off and are no good at all.

So while you can get it, it's expensive and not commonly available, so for now we stick to fishless cycling

 

[Nim]

Would also like to add that keeping the tank temperature slightly lower to around 22 degrees can speed the the developing bacteria as the water can then hold a lot more oxygen at 22 then at 25. Going lower then 20 could slow it down as then the bacterial matabolism would slow down.

Apart from that if your ammonia is at 5ppm then dont add any ammonia untill it drops to 2-3 ppm and then continue the dosage again.

never done a ammonia based fishless cycle as I always tend to use the fishfood method... though have not done a cycle for a few years now coz I also tend to re-use colonized media from my other tanks

Nim

 

[Reeveso]

Sounds good, I turned the heat down a bit.

Hopefully that'll work!

Also, if Bio-Spira is expensive I won't use it. I can wait

 

[Amunet]

From the stickied topic... higher temps actually help promote bacteria growth. You just have to make sure to run an airstone or something to oxygenate the water more. I didn't bother with that though.. I just kept our tanks at a steady 80F and everything worked out

 

[Nim]

Did not know this was actually investigated. Did a lot of reading and it does make sense as higher temperature = higher matabolism but less oxygen. and vice versa. I was relying on the fact that when ever I cycled coldwater tanks maintaining a temp of 20-22, they cycled much faster then tanks at temp 25-26.. but obviously I never tried at 32 (at 22 the tanks with fishfood method cycled in about 3 weeks fully whereas the one at 26 took about 5 weeks)

But if so many places have advised it then it must be correct

Sorry for my incorrect advise Waterdrop I was still relying on old info and experience

Nim