Still Cycling?

[EthanF]

My 60 litre fish tank has been cycling for like a month now, over the space of 24 hours my ammonia and nitrite go to 0-0.25ppm but i was told to add to 3ppm ammonia and if it goes down to 0 aswell as the nitrite then i am done- tried this and my nitrite somehow is at 0 but ammonia still showing around 3-4ppm ??
 
Need advice as i am getting really frustrated and i am holding myself back to buy fish...

 

[daizeUK]

Can you test your pH as your cycle may have stalled?

 

[EthanF]

yeah and high range ?

 

[daizeUK]

Try low range first, if the cycle has stalled it will be very low.

 

[EthanF]

okay

ph tops the chart (blue) so around 7.6
high range (yellow) so very low

 

[daizeUK]

That sounds fine, your pH would be less than 7 if the cycle had stalled due to TDS drop.  I can't think of any other reason for the cycle to stall, other than possibly lack of oxygen.  Are there ripples on the surface?

 

[EthanF]

yes a lot ! my filter is making a lot and my frog air stone also is agitating the water level.... maybe i need to wait another couple days or something? its just im really getting annoyed at walking past the tank and seeing no fish swimming around. i have been patient for nearly two months now haha
 
maybe ill wait till the ammonia drops, then the nitrite. and add 3ppm and wait 12 hours...again lol

 

[daizeUK]

Try testing your nitrate.  If it's very high then that can stall the cycle - although I would expect the pH to drop at the same time.

 

[EthanF]

haha, out comes the test kit again (y)

 

[daizeUK]

Give bottle 2 a darn good shake!

 

[EthanF]

What the..?! the nitrate is yellow... near enough 0 !! omg man...

 

[daizeUK]

That's unlikely after 2 months cycling, did you shake the second bottle?  It won't work unless you shake hard.

 

[dgwebster]

Dilute 5ml of your water into 100ml distilled bottled water, retest for nitrites. You could be so far off the charts, its reading 0.

 

[EthanF]

okay i will try again lol

nitrates are still yellow.....

 

[daizeUK]

It's not possible for your nitrates to be zero.  If you're certain you shook the bottle then either the test kit is faulty or your nitrate is off the scale as Dave said, although I would have expected your pH to crash if that was the case.