Sigh Still Nothing

[darenshan54]

week 4 cycling with plants and fish and ammonia is still not zero (usually hovers 0.25ppm and at highest 0.5ppm but i immediately WC). Nitrite readings are bellow or at 0.1ppm. I was wondering is it suppose to be this slow? I have 5 zebra danios in my tank, 2 otos, 2 cory, 2 guppies (female 1 is pregnant) in a 20g. None of fish have died, so i think im not doing anything wrong. Ive gone through the brown diatoms, and cloudy water stage... My aquarium is 50% planted, with decent lighting and flourite substrate. Im getting tired of constantly changing water...

P.S im going to lfs to buy some wysteria. i have Pogostemon helferi (7 stalks) Thai Stricta ( 4 specimens) in my tank already

 

[OldMan47]

It is not unusual to see a cycle take well over 4 weeks. Any time you see the nitrites or ammonia anywhere near 0.25 ppm, do at least a 50% water change. 7 and 4 plants is not a heavy planting by any means. I have well over 80 plants in my 40 gallon tank and it is rather lightly planted as far as controlling water quality is concerned. In that tank I have about 20 fish the size of zebras while you have about half that number. Without the cycled filter, my fish would be in trouble in that tank.

 

[darenshan54]

It is not unusual to see a cycle take well over 4 weeks. Any time you see the nitrites or ammonia anywhere near 0.25 ppm, do at least a 50% water change. 7 and 4 plants is not a heavy planting by any means. I have well over 80 plants in my 40 gallon tank and it is rather lightly planted as far as controlling water quality is concerned. In that tank I have about 20 fish the size of zebras while you have about half that number. Without the cycled filter, my fish would be in trouble in that tank.

well the biggest problem is that my water is 0.25ppm

 

[waterdrop]

Its not at all uncommon for fish-in cycles to take more than a month (we just -hope- they might only take that long so we mention that amount pretty frequently.)

I'm sure many of the other members will have plenty of sympathy for your situation as they've probably been in it themselves. Its very tiring and time-consuming to do all the water changes necessary for a fish-in cycle. I guess the good side to look at is that having done this much, you know you must be closer to the end and the resulting functional biofilter. Those bacteria can't hold out on you forever, they can't resist a good sponge with ammonia and oxygen going by!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ZoddyZod]

sadly it can last a lot longer. I set up my first tank recently and it took 80 days for it to cycle.

Do you know anyone you can get some mature filter media from?

If your lfs stock 'Bactinettes' then you could give that product a go. Ensure that it is stored in a fridge and that it is within its 'use by' date. This product seemed to help my cycle speed up.

 

[OldMan47]

Bactinettes is one of the few bacterial additives that I have ever seen people actually benefit by using. Most such things are nothing but stump water or some other primitive imitation of a useful product.

 

[mbsqw1d]

what filter have you got running?

 

[waterdrop]

How's your fish-in cycle going darenshan54?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GuppyGoddess]

How much water are you changing out. . .also are you vacuuming the substrate? My guppy tank was almost cycled - after 6 weeks 20% daily water changes (no ammonia or nitrite and barely visable nitrate) when I began treating it for a parasite and began vaccuming the gravel and now it's again having high ammonia levels.