alli789
New Member
Hello everyone,
I'm new to fish keeping and I'm cycling my first tank. It's a 10 gallon freshwater, treated with Seachem Prime, filtered and heated at 78 degrees F, with no live plants. I'm doing a fishless cycle. I've been cycling since mid July, around 7 weeks total, and my tank is being very stubborn. I started using fish food as my ammonia source, but that didn't get far, resulting in high nitrites and fluctuating but low ammonia levels, so now I'm using ACE pure ammonia.
Here's what's been happening that seems odd to me. A few weeks ago, my nitrites were at .5 ppm with ammonia at 1 ppm. For over a week, there were no changes (keep in mind, this was still several weeks into the cycle, and things had been changing beforehand). I decided to try API quick start. Within 2 days of adding the bacteria, my nitrites fell to 0, aka the first change to any parameters in around 2 weeks. However, my ammonia didn't budge for 11 days despite the success with the nitrites. After 11 days, my ammonia finally dropped to .5, so I fed the tank more ammonia back up to 1 ppm. It's been almost a week since then with no changes to the parameters.
I've also tested nitrates since I had nitrites that fell, and my nitrates are 5 ppm. Despite doing tons of research, I'm so confused and frustrated with my cycle. It seems like my nitrite converting bacteria are doing exactly what they need to, but the ammonia converting seem like they've never truly done their job. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?
I'm new to fish keeping and I'm cycling my first tank. It's a 10 gallon freshwater, treated with Seachem Prime, filtered and heated at 78 degrees F, with no live plants. I'm doing a fishless cycle. I've been cycling since mid July, around 7 weeks total, and my tank is being very stubborn. I started using fish food as my ammonia source, but that didn't get far, resulting in high nitrites and fluctuating but low ammonia levels, so now I'm using ACE pure ammonia.
Here's what's been happening that seems odd to me. A few weeks ago, my nitrites were at .5 ppm with ammonia at 1 ppm. For over a week, there were no changes (keep in mind, this was still several weeks into the cycle, and things had been changing beforehand). I decided to try API quick start. Within 2 days of adding the bacteria, my nitrites fell to 0, aka the first change to any parameters in around 2 weeks. However, my ammonia didn't budge for 11 days despite the success with the nitrites. After 11 days, my ammonia finally dropped to .5, so I fed the tank more ammonia back up to 1 ppm. It's been almost a week since then with no changes to the parameters.
I've also tested nitrates since I had nitrites that fell, and my nitrates are 5 ppm. Despite doing tons of research, I'm so confused and frustrated with my cycle. It seems like my nitrite converting bacteria are doing exactly what they need to, but the ammonia converting seem like they've never truly done their job. What am I doing wrong? What should I do?
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