The Cycle from Hell!

twhittle

twhittle

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2007
1,794
419
122
Clarkston, Wa
Okay, I thought my tank was cycled after several weeks. 0 ammonia or nitrites. After adding fish (I think too much too fast) the cycle started again. It has been 4 weeks and I thought I was getting somewhere when my ammonia was dropping and I noticed nitrites and some nitrates. After doing a water change yesterday we are back to .5 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate! This is a 180 gallon with a mega flow 4 sump system. I have been adding ammo-lock and seeding the tank with safe start bacteria. Any thoughts or advice?
 
J

joe jaskot

Dovii
MFK Member
Sep 16, 2011
3,864
390
107
Clifton, NJ
Add some live aquarium plants (like java moss) to the tank. Plenty of beneficial bacteria on the plants. Tank will cycle in no time. Plants will use the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate in the aquarium.
 
twhittle

twhittle

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2007
1,794
419
122
Clarkston, Wa
joe jaskot said:
Add some live aquarium plants (like java moss) to the tank. Plenty of beneficial bacteria on the plants. Tank will cycle in no time. Plants will use the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate in the aquarium.
Click to expand...
Should I add them to the sump? Cichlids and plants you know...
 
twhittle

twhittle

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2007
1,794
419
122
Clarkston, Wa
twhittle

twhittle

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2007
1,794
419
122
Clarkston, Wa
N

nossalucard

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2015
267
75
46
North Carolina
Add: PATIENCE!!!

Only TIME can cycle a tank properly, no matter how much money you throw at it. You ONLY other help would be cleaning some friends dirty filter media in your tank, or asking a LFS for to squeeze out some dirty filter media in a bag of thir tank water for you(and hope they have no pathogens/ick in their system if centralized). Even then, that bacteria STILL has to get settled and attached to your media and multiply....

Patience my friend, patience..... The waiting ALWYAS SUCKS!!!
 
P

predatorkeeper87

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Sep 8, 2014
4,293
2,029
164
pennsylvania
I'll whole-heartedly disagree with the older methods of tank cycling at this point. SeaChem Stability has cycled multiple tanks for me within a weeks time. And by cycled I mean 0 ammo, 0 nitrite, 10-40 nitrate depending on tank size and stock.
 
N

nossalucard

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2015
267
75
46
North Carolina
And that's what great about America, we can agree to disagree! Yea, I'll admit, I tried that that 1-shot cycle stuff once (tetra safestart-formerly BIOSPira), and even thought it worked for like a week! Boy was I wrong(cycle restarted 1 week later, and STILL lasted 6 weeks), but best of luck to you my friend!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
zoomed.com
hikariusa.com
aqaimports.com
Store
Top Bottom