Stalling Cycle

[craigieboy01]

Hi all, After 5 weeks of a fishless cycle, my ammonia levels still hadnt went to 0ppm, only just went to 0.25ppm 2day, I had been wanting to change my white gravel to Pewter sand as i seen it in a display tank and thought it looked brill, so i removed the gravel and put in the rinsed sand and done a 90% water change. My question is do i condition the water and add the Ammonia right away to 4 or 5ppm? Thanks

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Craigieboy,

If you have changed 90% of the water, you'll also have removed 90% of the ammonia, so yes you should dechlorinate the water and top ammonia back up again.

That said, 5 weeks is a long time to wait for the first lot of ammonia to disappear. What is the pH of the water in the tank?

 

[fatheadminnow]

I agree, 5 weeks a long time to wait for the first initial drop in Ammonia.

Like stated above, what is your pH of your tank at?

Another silly questions, but to be honest some people don't have this and try to cycle a tank; a filter; do you have one on your tank?

-FHM

 

[craigieboy01]

Hi All, Its a Fluval Edge tank i have with a filter and a non adjustable Edge heater, i have been told that my temperature was probs too low for the cycle, my temp was sitting about 72% as the tank was in a colder part of the house so I have since bought a new fully adjustable heater and cranked up the heating to about 82% so hopefully that will start to speed things up. My Ph is fine at 7.6. I will dechlorinate and add Ammonia now. Thanks

 

[fatheadminnow]

Yup, the cold temperature might have been the reason why the tank is taking so long to cycle.

-FHM