Having Trouble With Starting The Cycling In My Tank. Please Help

[ClkJay]

- 135 gallon tank
- 5 Cory - 30 Black Neon Tetra - 1 Pleco
- 2 300 watts thermostats
- 85-86 degrees
- 6 pieces Malaysian Drift Wood
- Live plants
- Eheim 2260 Canister Filter

I have added 7 Litre of EHEIM MECH and 5 Litre of EHEIM SUBSTRATE, all new. I also have Chemi Pure in the filter canister. I have been running this for 5 weeks now, test have shown no signs of NITRITE going up or AMMONIA going down. I am feeding very little every 3-4 days. AMMONIA is reading 8.0 which is dark dark green but all my fish are still alive. AMMONIA has been at 8.0 for over 2 weeks.

Why isn't the cycling starting?

Could too low of PH effect the cycling process? My PH is around 5.5

Should I do partial water changes or leave ammonia this high to try to start the cycling? Would higher ammonia speed up the cycling process?

 

[cowboy507]

yes, it might be your pH,
a pH of 6.0 or lower might make the bacteria do dormant.

 

[Rediahs]

From my understnading, the process is the same speed whether you have 8 ppm or 0.1 ppm of ammonia in the tank (aside from the fact that, if you end up with any more than 8 ppm or so of ammonia, it actually feeds the wrong type of bacteria, so you really want to keep it lower)

Do water changes until you have a minimal ammonia reading and your pH needs to be raised. 5.5 definitely is too low for the bacteria to multiply. Your fish are probably suffering, even if they aren't dying, from that ammonia, if the reading is correct.

Are you using a liquid test or strip test? If it's a strip test it is most likely incredibly inaccurate (to the point of not even being useful or anywhere near the real readings) and I recommend getting a liquid test.

I think 85 degrees is too high for your fish (great for the bacteria!! But the fish will be hot) so try to lower your heater.

 

[ClkJay]

From my understnading, the process is the same speed whether you have 8 ppm or 0.1 ppm of ammonia in the tank (aside from the fact that, if you end up with any more than 8 ppm or so of ammonia, it actually feeds the wrong type of bacteria, so you really want to keep it lower)

I am using the API Fresh water tester kit, which is liquid. I did a 1/3 water change and the ammonia now reads 4.0. Should I keep ammonia less than 1.0 to start the cycling?

 

[Rediahs]

From my understnading, the process is the same speed whether you have 8 ppm or 0.1 ppm of ammonia in the tank (aside from the fact that, if you end up with any more than 8 ppm or so of ammonia, it actually feeds the wrong type of bacteria, so you really want to keep it lower)

I am using the API Fresh water tester kit, which is liquid. I did a 1/3 water change and the ammonia now reads 4.0. Should I keep ammonia less than 1.0 to start the cycling?

Yes, and really, ideally, it would be kept to less than 0.25 ppm to avoid permanent damage to your fish. High ammonia levels burns their gills and etc... not fun! Even if they are hardy fish it's best to keep them healthy. You don't lose anything except all that water you're changing out - the bacteria don't care, they have plenty of food. As long as there is SOME ammonia in the tank, no matter if it's 0.1 ppm or 10, they haven't finished eating it, so no point in keeping any extra around to bother your fish.

By the way that's a good test kit, I have it myself nice choice. Only thing that's annoying to me is it's hard to tell between 2 and 4 ppm ammonia on the chart... but oh well... it isn't really all that important as long as you can tell between "lots" "some" and "zero" accurately, which this test does.

 

[ClkJay]

Do you know of any tester that can test PH below 6.0?

 

[arobinson1984]

What is the PH of your tap water?

If your tap water PH is fine then something in your tank is lowering it and needs to be sorted as the cycle won't perform correctly at a low PH.

Also agree about getting your ammonia levels down, anything above 5-6ppm i think it is, causes a different type of bacteria to grow, not the type of bacteria you need.

Andy

 

[waterdrop]

With that many fish in there, there's plenty of ammonia for the fish-in cycle to proceed even if a liquid test kit for ammonia reads zero ppm (and, yes, with good fish-in cycling proceedures you want to always keep ammonia between "zero" ppm and 0.25ppm.. the test kit is all about keeping the fish safe, you don't need any visible levels to feed the bacteria.)

The problem is definately that the pH is not only "not optimized" (pH of 8.0 to 8.4 is optimal for speedy growth) but also that its so low that growth won't even be happening. Hopefully water changes will solve this, since lots of water is going to need to be changed to solve the high ammonia problem anyway!

What is "chemi-pure"? Don't know this and it may need to be discussed with the members as you don't want anything in there working against the cycle by chemically removing the bacteria's food.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[arobinson1984]

Waterdrop, I'm not an expert on PH levels and what effect them.

Could the 6 pieces of malaysian drift wood in his tank be lowering the PH?

Andy

 

[waterdrop]

Yes! The driftwood could easily be the main downward pressure on pH in addition to the cycling itself. You could take out all the wood for the cycling period and that would help the water changes that bring up your pH only to a certain degree to be able to hold a higher pH for longer. This would save you from having to resort to baking soda or crushed coral. But one way or another, if the pH stays below 6.2 then the cycle won't happen is my guess.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ClkJay]

Thanks for everyones help. I will go try to keep the ph higherand do water changes to see what happens.

 

[ClkJay]

After the cycling starts, if the ph goes below 6.0, will it still effect the bacteria in the filter?

 

[arobinson1984]

I'm not sure if it will effect the bacteria that has already formed, but they will go dormant and the cycle will basically stall. Ideally for a cycle you want a higher PH, somewhere around the 8 - 8.4 region I believe.

Have you removed your 6 pieces of malaysian driftwood as they could be the reason the PH is getting lowered in your tank, also what is the PH reading of your tap water when it comes straight out of the tap

Andy

 

[ClkJay]

My tap water is at 7.0 which is neutral. I haven't removed the driftwood due to my plants being attached to them. I am now using PH up from API. My current PH reading is now at 7.0. I will try to monitor it daily and make sure it does go to acidic again. Will using the PH up effect the cycling?

I am getting this tank ready to raise discus. I have had discus in there but due to a local fish shop giving me wrong information about all my media needing to be changed has caused the tank to be not cycled. they had told me to change out all the media which in turn not have any beneficial bacteria in my filter. 2 weeks after that, my discus started to die. I have removed all my discus to a secondary tank for now. This is the reason why I had to restart the cycling on this tank.

 

[arobinson1984]

I hope it goes ok now, keep your eye on your PH level. If it starts to drop again you will have to remove your driftwood because that is what will be causing it to drop

Andy