Fed Up With Fishless Cycle

[emilythestrange]

I started my fishless cycle on my 100 litre tank at the end of november,
I have recorded my test results as follows:

24/12/08 Ammonia 1.0 ppm Nitrite 0.25 ppm

25/12/08 Ammonia 0 Added 5ml of pure ammonia at 11pm

26/12/08 Ammonia 2.0 ppm

28/12/08 Ammonia 0ppm Added 5ml of pure ammonia at 11pm

1/1/09 Ammonia 0.25- 0.5 ppm Nitrite 0 ppm

2/1/09 Ammonia 0.25- 0.5 ppm STILL

Nitrite is 0ppm and the ammonia will not fall back down to 0ppm


Im getting impatient because this cycle has stopped and re started and its proving more difficult and is taking longer than the one i did in septemeber.
Any ideas?

 

[JustKia]

Check your pH levels, if they are too high low (sorry, thanks for the correction BTT) it can cause your cycle to stall. Check your test kit if your ammonia has been dropping (albeit slowly) you would expect to see a nitrIte reading as 1ppm ammonia converts into 2.7ppm nitrIte (although personally for some odd reason my nitrItes dropped to zero before my ammonia finally did). Another thing to check would be your water temp, if it's too cold the bacs will take much longer to multiply.

How big is this tank? Have you used any additives (besides dechlor)? Were you able to use any mature media from the previous tank you cycled? Are you using test strips (as they are notorious for being inaccurrate) or a liquid based kit?

 

[Honeythorn]

Do you know anybody with an established tank? If so you can simply put your filter in their tank, leave it for just over a month and it's done. No faffing about with ammonia and so on. Don't get me wrong, I support fishless cycling but I think it's really such a complicated and time consuming way to go about things. IF you do know someone with an established tank who will help then I strongly suggest you do as I described above. Saves a lot of hassle.

 

[backtotropical]

Just to re-iterate good advice from Justkia and Honeythorn there.

The only thing I would say is that i've never heard of pH being too high stalling the cycle. I think Dr Hovanec states that the upper level would be somewhere 9+ which would be very unusual for a municipal water supply.

The more common problem is the pH falling too low, and the cycling process itself actually drives down the pH, so this is quite common.

If the pH falls to around 6 the cycle will stall, and if it gets down to around 5.5 the bacteria will actually start to die off.

Turning up the temperature will certainly speed up the cycle. The optimum temp is around 30C. I've never heard of a lower temp actually stalling the cycle though, so i doubt this is the problem.

BTT

 

[emilythestrange]

Ok i will turn up the temperature... its at 24 C at the moment.
I dont know anyone close who has a fish tank... it doesnt interest them.
I put in filter start from the interpet range, and nothign else goes in apart from ammonia and de chlor.

I might find out if there is anyone who has alot of filter media willing to donate. I cant take any off my small fluval 1 media, because their will be a betta in their when i can move the current fish to the big tank.

 

[rabbut]

Where abouts in the UK are you? It might be worth a post in Tropical Chat to see if anyone is near you and willing to donate some media to your caurse

All the best
Rabbut

 

[waterdrop]

I agree, you want that temperature to be up there at 29C/30C or that might be a slow-down factor. The optimal pH range for the bacteria to grow is supposed to be 8.0 to 8.4, so if you were down in the 6's or way high towards 9 at a low temperature then that could explain the lack of development perhaps.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mic8310]

i too feel like theres nothing goin on, ammonia still takes best part of 24 hours and i cant get the nitrites to drop and its been nearly 3 weeks but it feels like 3 months. i did a 75% water change yesterday as the wood i put in turned everything a horrible browny colour (dispite the LFS saying it wouldnt 'because its not bog wood') and im now getting to the stage where im kinda wishing id done the fish-in cycle as i dont have the pennies to fill it with fish in one go anyway.

But not to worry. Sorry i dont mean to hi-jack this thread but i suppose im saying i sympathise with emilythestrange as its a long wait, especially when you dont think things are going well at this stage.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I think even if we don't say it, we all sympathize. My son's tank took a full 3 months to fishless cycle and it seemed like eons (and then the tank broke and it took some more months to settle it back down!) Its a pretty unpredictable process and its easy to misunderstand things and have greater setbacks as a result.

Except in very, very small tanks I don't tend to think of Fish-In cycling as an "alternative cycling method", I think of it more as an accident that happened and now one is trying to save the lives of the fishes or lower their level of permanent gill and nerve damage. The amount of water that must be changed in fish-in cycling is just such a huge amount of labor, its a horrible alternative to adding ammonia, testing and having dialog here about what's going on.

MW, BTT, dorsey and the gang here really helped me have patience back during all that learning and so I like to hope that we can all help others have patience and treat the situation as a potential learning experience whenever they fishless cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JustKia]

The only thing I would say is that i've never heard of pH being too high stalling the cycle.

Apologies have corrected my post

 

[emilythestrange]

Yep it is a waiting game, I am in the Stoke on trent area, cant find anyone nearby

 

[emilythestrange]

Update
Things are still pretty much the same, straightaway after the early posts in the beggining of jan
I turned the temp up to 30 C


I am officially Fed up now.
And theres no hope for mature filter media.

My tank is so boring, would anyone else wait since the 17th of novmber it had my new filter in Everythings been the same since then.
Im obviousely doing something wrong... how can a cycle take longer than....3 MONTHS?!?!

 

[rdd1952]

Emily, I would suggest a complete restart as in a 100% water change. That will get the pH back up and basically start anew, getting all the levels back to readable levels (on the chart), without having an effect on the bacteria you have present (make sure to use dechlor). You posted your ammonia numbers but what are your readings for nitrite, nitrate and pH in both the tank and for your tap water? If your nitrate level is rising, that means that the tank is cycling as nitrite is being processed.

 

[emilythestrange]

Emily, I would suggest a complete restart as in a 100% water change. That will get the pH back up and basically start anew, getting all the levels back to readable levels (on the chart), without having an effect on the bacteria you have present (make sure to use dechlor). You posted your ammonia numbers but what are your readings for nitrite, nitrate and pH in both the tank and for your tap water? If your nitrate level is rising, that means that the tank is cycling as nitrite is being processed.

Im starting to think im doign it wrong but i dont see how.

Im adding 5ml of pure ammonia to a 100l tank.... Everytime to ammonia is 0 when i test it.

I added only 2 pipettes of ammonia at 7 am
and 1 hour ago it read 0-50 of ammonia

I dont get it !!!!!!!
Ive done a fishless cycle before on a tiny tank but this one is reducing me to tears


Is a 100% re start neccessary because i am really fed up of changing the whole water (its finally settled and gone clear after the cloudy water a few weeks ago ish)
I have changed the whole water a few times at the very start and then 50% in the past.
Its annoying work.

my other tank has 3 guppies and 5 tetras which are happy nd none have died in a long time. that tank is so easy to maintain. a pinch of food, plug in air pump and ur done basically.
I just want my big tank to get to this point.

 

[rdd1952]

It sounds as if the ammonia is processing properly. If the ammonia is dropping back that fast, what are the nitrite and nitrate doing? The nitrite should hopefully be doing the same, rising and then falling and the nitrate should be getting extrememly high.