Cycle Stuck

[Cempa]

I don't how you can "maintain" a level of 2 ppm ammonia.

Are you saying that you were adding only 2 ppm per day, even if it declined to zero later that day, or are you checking all day long an adding ammonia every time it tests below 2 ppm? If the latter, how are you calculating how much ammonia to add when it's not 2 ppm?

Basically when I was doing the fishless cycle I tested the ammonia I was using (Dr. Tims) in a gallon bucket to determine the number of drops to achieve 1 ppm. I then just multiplied the amount of drops to the amount of water in my system to increase by a specific ppm to get to 2 ppm.

edit: I checked the ammonia every day, whenever it dropped to 1 ppm I'd add another 1 ppm to get to 2 ppm. I hadn't had to do this for the 2-3 weeks as my ammonia was not moving until today.. However, like I mentioned in my previous post I now have fish in the tank so I can't monitor it to a specific ammonia as I was before..

 

[Cempa]

To the OP. Two things. One is if you had material from an established tank hen why did you try a "fishless cycle"? You had the stuff to start a quick cycle. All you should have needed to do is add fish slowly over a few weeks so the bb population can be able to adjust to the bio-load.

The other is this link is my reference and I find it useful. A long read and not all will be understood right away, but useful over time.
Aquarium cycling link


http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/nitrogen_cycle.html

My reasoning for not adding fish right away even though I took some substrate from an established tank is because I didn't know if I'd actually achieve an instant cycle. However, this second time of getting substrate from my local fishstore, I have added fish. I did a large water change to bring parameters down to less than 0.50 ppm of both ammonia and nitrite. I've added 6, 1.5" piranhas. Everything seems to be moving again -fingers crossed!

 

[skjl47]

Hello; The issue in some of these cycle problem threads has been with the testing procedures. If your testing practices are in some way flawed then the results cannot give any useful information.

The testing problems fall into three areas usually.
One is old or outdated chemical reagents. This in not usually the problem but should be checked.
Another is not shaking the chemicals enough. When instructions call for shaking then shake a lot.
The last is not having clean vials. I and a few others like to use distilled water for the rinsing of vials.
Another value of distilled water is you can run a series of tests on it. The results should be neutral or null in such tests.

A fourth thing came to mind. Have you tested the source water? Might give some useful data.

 

[Cempa]

Hello; The issue in some of these cycle problem threads has been with the testing procedures. If your testing practices are in some way flawed then the results cannot give any useful information.

The testing problems fall into three areas usually.
One is old or outdated chemical reagents. This in not usually the problem but should be checked.
Another is not shaking the chemicals enough. When instructions call for shaking then shake a lot.
The last is not having clean vials. I and a few others like to use distilled water for the rinsing of vials.
Another value of distilled water is you can run a series of tests on it. The results should be neutral or null in such tests.

A fourth thing came to mind. Have you tested the source water? Might give some useful data.

Yes, my test kit is well within the expiry date (2022).

I follow the instructions exactly. The only real test that has any excess shaking is the nitrate test. The rest are dropping, then shaking the tube for 5 seconds, waiting 5 minutes, checking colour.

I clean my test tubes after each use, i.e. running under water.

I've tested the source water with water conditioner in it prior to putting it into the tank to check my test kit. Everything read 0.

Thanks!

 

[Drstrangelove]

Thanks for the detailed replies. Those helped a lot.

Excluding the important points S skjl47 mentioned, the problem seems to point to the triggering event as adding the new lava rocks. Ammonia processing halted or dramatically slowed down then. Do you agree?

Assuming you have no issues with the tests and no changes in the source water, it suggests to me that something inhibited or damaged the BB populations at that point. If so, you didn't seem to lose all of the BB, but a significant portion. Still, if your nitrates are increasing, then the cycle is moving forwards despite the setback.

I might have missed it, but please confirm you aren't using any RO water or adding any other chemicals to the tank. Lack of nutrients in RO water can inhibit nitrobacter, while adding other chemicals might distort the tests.

 

[Cempa]

Thanks for the detailed replies. Those helped a lot.

Excluding the important points S skjl47 mentioned, the problem seems to point to the triggering event as adding the new lava rocks. Ammonia processing halted or dramatically slowed down then. Do you agree?

Assuming you have no issues with the tests and no changes in the source water, it suggests to me that something inhibited or damaged the BB populations at that point. If so, you didn't seem to lose all of the BB, but a significant portion. Still, if your nitrates are increasing, then the cycle is moving forwards despite the setback.

I might have missed it, but please confirm you aren't using any RO water or adding any other chemicals to the tank. Lack of nutrients in RO water can inhibit nitrobacter, while adding other chemicals might distort the tests.

I only use Nutrafin Aqua+Plus to remove chlorine and chloramines.

I'd agree that I seemed to have set the cycle back when I added the additional lava rocks somehow..

should I perform a water change or not touch anything at the moment? Keeping in mind I do now have fish in the aquarium.. I'm a bit hesitate as it does seem to be moving along. I'm going to provide updates to this thread until it has cycled.

 

[Cempa]

Ammonia I'm thinking may actually now be 0ppm.


Possibly 2.0 ppm - 5.0 ppm, hard to tell with the API test kit


Possibly 20 ppm - 40 ppm, more orange but does have a red tint

Overall everything seems to be moving along nicely since I did that water change several days back. I went ahead today and did another 25% water change to lower the nitrites.

Thoughts?

 

[Cempa]

 

[Cempa]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that my aquarium seems to now be cycled (tests were done on May 31, 2018). Within the past two days my Nitrites have dropped to zero. I wanted to post this because I find a lot of people come to these forums requesting assistance with their cycle, are given direction, then never say if/what worked. You sometimes wonder if they just through their aquarium onto the street!

In my case, I and others believed my aquarium had too high of Ammonia/Nitrite. Even though I assumed I had around 2.00ppm, I believe I was over the 5.00ppm mark -stalling my cycle. This is because the API Test Kit colors for 2.00ppm and <5.00ppm for both Nitrite and Ammonia are very similar. Almost to the point where they are indistinguishable. Once I performed a 50% water change, my parameters dropped to a reasonable level, and the aquarium was back on track.

If I could provide any advice to others it would be to do water changes at least once a week while you perform your fishless cycle. This will make it easier to identify your true parameters if your test kit is like mine. If you perform a 25% water change, and your parameters barely change, then obviously you were <5.00ppm and not actually 2.00ppm. I was doing this at the start of my cycle and it was moving along quickly. However I then got lazy and stopped once I read several documents suggesting there is no need to touch your water if your Nitrites and Ammonia are around 2.00ppm. This is true, however the water change can be an extra precaution in my opinion. Not to mention, over time it may resolve other issues such as diluting a contaminate in the aquarium that is inhibiting the growth of beneficial bacteria (from new plumbing, cleaning etc.)

Anyways, thanks everyone who assisted!