Fishless Cycling A 90 Gallon

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rds5532

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Hey everyone, I just got my second tank. I built my own stand and canopy, rocks, sand water etc. all been added. I have been adding ammonia for almost 3 weeks now with no change. My 55 gallon was completely cycled in 3 1/2 weeks. I have added some small media from my established filter to this filter. This may seem like a stupid question, but here it is. Does it take longer to cycle the bigger the tank is? I know your actually cycling your filter, which is bigger than my filter on my 55, So the bigger the tank and or filter the longer to cycle?
 
Its me again...Does anybody have any comments? The tank has had an ammonia level of 8-12 ppm for the last month. I used the same test kit on another established tank and got a true reading, so its not the kit. Is there anything that could be causing the filter not to begin cycling? I put ceramic media and a couple pieces of a sponge from the established filter in the new filter. I thought this was going to speed the process?
 
8-12 ppm of ammonia is awfully high. Do a 50% water change to dilute that into the 4-5 ppm range. The issue is that at that high concentration of ammonia, the bacteria normally found in aquariums cannot live very well. Try diluting and aiming to keep the level around 5 ppm.

It's going to take a while, but see if that doesn't work better for you.

If the heaters are in the tank, crank the water temperature up to like 85 degrees or so. The warmer temps help the bacteria grow faster, too.
 

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