Cycling trouble

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K

Kinbote

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 1, 2011
114
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0
New Zealand
I've been trying to set up a 59 litre/15 gallon quarantine tank for 7 - 8 weeks now.

It's at about 29C/84F.
I've dosed it with pure ammonia, keeping it between 2 and 4 ppm.
I've treated the water with StressCoat, StressZyme and added heaps of StartSmart. I even got a scoop of gravel from the LFF.

I'm running a Hailea BT1000 power filter which has the regular sponge in it, but I've replaced the carbon with some ceramic bio-noodles from a canister filter.

And almost nothing's happening. After about a month I started getting nitrites, which pretty quickly went off the charts. The ammonia was going down but extremely slowly, and then seemed to stop.

I decided I had to change the filter media so went and bought some, but when I got home the nitrites had finally disappeared. So I left it in hoping things were finally happening, but now there's been no change in the ammonia level for about a week.

I'd previously cycled this tank in 16 days using the same method but without StartSmart or any used gravel.

So what the hell's going on?
 
shellies215;5163549; said:
What ppm (mg/l) did you dose the ammonia to?
Click to expand...

he said 2-4ppm
 
Sorry I missed the dosing part, but You should only dose to 2 ppm ammonia for now, when you see nitrites rising, do water changes to keep nitrites below 2ppm, higher levels slow down the process and inhibit the forming of the bacteria that turn the nitrites to nitrates. I'm not sure why nothing is happening to the ammonia now, maybe try a large water change and dose to 2ppm and see what happens.
 
sounds like you trying too hard to cycle :(
if you used the old medias..thats should be it just add water and fish.
if you used the API zyme+ and stress coat+ it should be it, water and fish or ammonia
 
shellies215;5163615; said:
Sorry I missed the dosing part, but You should only dose to 2 ppm ammonia for now, when you see nitrites rising, do water changes to keep nitrites below 2ppm, higher levels slow down the process and inhibit the forming of the bacteria that turn the nitrites to nitrates. I'm not sure why nothing is happening to the ammonia now, maybe try a large water change and dose to 2ppm and see what happens.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's the problem, seeing as the nitrites have dropped to zero now (and have been at zero for the past week).
 
sounds the tank cycled then but like what you worried about..that is way too long for the size even for the primitive way
 
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