No beneficial bact after 1 month

[k2snowboards88]

My fish tank has been up and running for a month. The cycle hasn't even begun. I've been changing about 25% of the water every other day just to keep the fish alive. I always dechlorinate the water with aquasafe. I test for nitrite and amonia every day. Nitrite is always at 0 and amonia is always between .25ppm and 2 ppm. But still no cycle. I've also tried stress zyme to introduce bacteria. I'm getting really frustrated with having to change the water so often. Its a real pain with a 55 gallon tank.

Does anyone know why bacteria might not be growing? Does anyone know any extreme solutions that have worked for them? I'm about to give these fish back to the store and buy a snake or something. Because i'm really sick of all the water changes.

I've seen a product at my lfs that is supposed to add tons of bacteria to the water. Its kept cold at the store and is in a metal bottle. ITs also 25 dollars. Does anyone know what that could have been or if its worth giving it a try? I don't feel like throwing another 25 dollars into this seemingly futile attempt to get my tank cycle.

Thanks for any help or advice you can give me.

 

[glolite]

Hi there. I agree water changes can be a pain but once the tank has cycled you'll be fine Do you have any live plants in your tank? A nice bit of live plant soil should soon set things off. Otherwise you could suspend some potting compost in an old sock for a few days. Hope you get on ok

 

[WILDER]

I used nutrafin benefical bacteria, sorry forgotten the name but that got me going with my first tank.

 

[ddm18]

What kind of filter do you have? Under-gravel, internal, external...? Just describe it, if you're not sure!

 

[k2snowboards88]

I have a hang on back filter without a biowheel. Is it common for the cycle to have not started after a month?

 

[WILDER]

What kind of fish do you have and how many.

 

[k2snowboards88]

4 tiger barbs, a peacock eel and a red fin shark.

 

[WILDER]

I would add some hardy fish as it's going slow as you have a big tank with not many fish in it, like platys,danio's, or black widow tetras

 

[astroboy]

Buy bio spira.

 

[sylvia]

What fish do you have? edit: that question was already answered

I think you should return the fish to your LFS and exchange for store credit or something.

Then start from the beginning but this time without fish.

First of all, buy a new, liquid-based test kit.

Then get yourself some pure ammonia. Put as much in your tank as you need for the tests to show about 2ppm. You can put more in if you want to be able to add more fish immediately. Test your water for the next few weeks until ammonia drops to 0 and nitrite starts rising. Keep adding a little ammonia every day. Eventualy, your ammonia and nitrites should both drop and you should have high nitrates. Do a very large water change with dechlorinated water to get rid of the majority of nitrates and add your first few fish right away. Stop adding ammonia as your fish will be providing this now.

I can assure you that, provided you use dechlorinator or avoid disturbing your bacteria in any other way, your tank will eventualy cycle.

 

[k2snowboards88]

I might have to do that if this continues. But i'd ratther not return all my fish. Especially the peacock eel as he was hard to find.

Does anyone know if it is common to have a tank that isn't cylcing at all after one month?

And about the potting compost. Is that something you buy from a store, or is it actual compost?

 

[WILDER]

Do you no anybody with a mature tank who would give you some mature filter media.

 

[Shizat]

You dont have many fish in there to cycle your tank and you are doing 25 percent water changes which is causing your cycle to go so slow. When I cycled my 80 gallon I used 6 zebra danios and 10 black and gold skirt tetras and it took me 7-8 weeks for a full cycle.

 

[sylvia]

Whatever you do, DON't add more fish! That'll just increase the amount of ammonia and increase the chances of your fish dying. Zebra danios are very hardy so I can see why they may have survived but I wouldn't put ANY fish through this sort of stress just to get a quicker cycle.
Personaly, I'd say that if you don't want to return your fish and do a fishless cycle, just be patient and it will eventualy work out .
Also, do consider getting a new test kit incase your old one is faulty. Those that use liquids are better than strips BTW.

 

[k2snowboards88]

It is a liquid test kit. I think its working because i tried testing tap water and it came back 0ppm.

I don't think i'm changing too much water because i haven't had 0ppm amonia for 2 weeks.

Could there be something wrong with my tap water? Are there any tests i could run on it to find out?