- Cycling a 180 Litres Fishtank - Need some Advices and Help Here

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DempseyDude

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 18, 2005
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São Paulo - Brazil
Hello Friends,

- I have started cycling my tank of 180 litres running EHEIM 2215 4 days ago..

- The secound day i used Seachem Stability, as indicated in the bottle.

- Yesterday I placed 8 mL of ammonia (10% ammonia solution in water) in my tank of 180 Litres + more Seachem Stability.

- Today I added a little filter material from a tank that had balanced biology, and + Seachem Stability, and now by the night i started to measure the parameters of the water.

gave:

Ammonia = 10 ppm

Nitrite = 0 ppm

Nitrate = 0 ppm

pH = 8

Temperature is 33 C and a very strong pump oxygenating the tank.

What do you guys think? I find it strange not to have noticed the presence of bacteria still, because the readings gave me 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate .. Anyways, I will continue to add the Stability for 5 days left as indicated in the stability bottle label ...

Ammonia is very high for that little ammonia added to the tank

Let's see ...
 
Follow the directions on the stability bottle exactly ! If you do this you will cycle your tank faster.
If you want to do a fishless cycle, dose 1/2 the amount of ammonia you are currently dosing.

What brand test kit are you using to measure ammonia ?
 
If you have an established tank, which it seems you do, take a good chunk of filter material from that tank and put it in the filter of the new tank. It will instantly cycle the tank without the need to mess with stability or any other tank additives. A small chunk of filter material contains billions of bacteria that will rapidly cycle a new tank. I have cycled tanks with as little as 50 or 60 ceramic bioballs and haven't had any ammonia or nitrite problems.
 
rhodes_96 said:
Follow the directions on the stability bottle exactly ! If you do this you will cycle your tank faster.
If you want to do a fishless cycle, dose 1/2 the amount of ammonia you are currently dosing.

What brand test kit are you using to measure ammonia ?
Click to expand...

SERA Test Kit

PostalPenguin said:
If you have an established tank, which it seems you do, take a good chunk of filter material from that tank and put it in the filter of the new tank. It will instantly cycle the tank without the need to mess with stability or any other tank additives. A small chunk of filter material contains billions of bacteria that will rapidly cycle a new tank. I have cycled tanks with as little as 50 or 60 ceramic bioballs and haven't had any ammonia or nitrite problems.
Click to expand...

I did that, i may get some more from my lfs today and put into the tank...
 
PostalPenguin said:
If you have an established tank, which it seems you do, take a good chunk of filter material from that tank and put it in the filter of the new tank. It will instantly cycle the tank without the need to mess with stability or any other tank additives. A small chunk of filter material contains billions of bacteria that will rapidly cycle a new tank. I have cycled tanks with as little as 50 or 60 ceramic bioballs and haven't had any ammonia or nitrite problems.
Click to expand...

I just got a good chunk of filter material from a established tank from my Local fish store and putted inside of my EHEIM 2215 with the Perlon, and did a 40% Water change to bring the ammonia levels a bit down.. lets see now..
 
The reason I ask about the test kit is because your test reading could indicate a total ammonia and ammonium result. The sera test kit doesn't differetiaite between the two.

Did you add a water conditioner to the tank water such as prime before you started the cycle ?
 
rhodes_96 said:
The reason I ask about the test kit is because your test reading could indicate a total ammonia and ammonium result. The sera test kit doesn't differetiaite between the two.

Did you add a water conditioner to the tank water such as prime before you started the cycle ?
Click to expand...

I used only StabilitySeachem.. and ur right, Sera test kit shows Nh3 and Nh4.
 
The only conclusion that i had so far is... Stability doenst do anything, is crap, even with 3, 4 ppm of ammonia for 4 days, the parameter didnt change a thing, is just crap chemical that makes u think will cycle ur tank in one week, but it doenst.. i know normal cycling takes minimum 1 month, and i thought about stability to make the cycling faster, but it doenst, is crap.. not a single drop of ammonia has been converted to nitrite so far..

im stopping to use this.. and will keep the normal cycling process..

tank has already been seeded with Bacteria from another tank...
 
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