Fishless Cycling Stalled?

[Jonno]

Hi there,

Up until Saturday my ammonia was being processed from 4/5ppm down to zero in about 8 hours. It was then that i thought i'd have the bright idea of removing my seed filter media (didnt think it was needed any morea nd wanted it to run without before adding fish), removed a carbon filter, and replaced a nitrate sponge with a course sponge

anyway... after this the time taken to process dropped at around 12 hours until today, where it appears to be stuck around 0.5 - 1ppm ammonia after about 20 hours. I'm sure this isn't due to my changes to the filter as it was processing in 12 hours on Sunday and Monday. Nitrites still haven't dropped either, although i'm yet to hit double the time the ammonia took to dissapear yet.

The PH appears to be about 6.4 according to the API master testing kit.

Is this normal? Do i need to do a water change as i read in other posts that the brakedown of ammonia slows at around this PH?

Thanks!

Jonno.

 

[WILDER]

This might help.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861

 

[rdd1952]

Removing media from the filter means removing bacteria. If, for instance, you removed half the media in your filter, you also removed half of your bacteria (possibly a little more or less depending on where it is in the filter and water flow). Sponges are also a prime location for bacteria to colonize so changing those removed a lot of your bacteria. Basically, anything that you do to the filter can have an adverse effect on the cycling process. That is why it isn't wise to mess with it. Even though the ammonia seemed to still drop back the day after the change, I feel certain that what you did has had an effect on the bacteria.

Doing a large water change certainly won't hurt. It will get the nitrite back to a level that you can read for a short while anyway. Try that and see it the ammonia starts to process properly again.

 

[Chrispixx]

I'm suspecting the low Ph stalled the cycle.. I had a cycle stall once when the Ph dropped to low.

 

[Jonno]

My Nitrite is always just really dark purple (darker than anything on the colour sheet) - it doesn't go green though like i have seen on other posts? should it?

Yeah i really should have just left the seed filter media in instead of taking the carbon/nitrate sponges out at the same time. learn from your mistakes come to mind

Checked the ammonia this morning and it had dropped back to 0.25 overnight - so added a bit more to top it up. If this hasn't gone down at a decent speed by tonight i'll do a largish water change, say 40%?

I'm definately getting somewhere though... the water doesn't appear to be as polluted... had small white worms, flys on the surface and a white film on the surface last week all of which appear to have gone. Now i just have algae! In addition, i am getting Nitrates, over 40ppm definately although the colours are too similar to tell how much over 40ppm (was only 5ppm when i removed the nitrate sponge).