fishless cycling advice

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frankthetank

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 2, 2008
129
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16
Naples, FL
I started fishless cycling Tuesday 3/4/08 and added ammonia up to 4ppm like I had researched. I've been adding Seachems Stability as well since Thursday. I've tested my ammonia every day and it's always still 4ppm hasn't changed any. PH 7.2, Nitrates and Nitrites both 0. I even tried some seeding about 3 days ago, placing some gravel from my established tank in.

I didn't expect results that quick, but I thought by now I'd at least have a change in ammonia or something. Is this normal? Should I give it a couple more days? Do a water change? Thanks.
 
Thanks for the reasurrance. I'll hang in there and give it more time. Guess I was just expecting a little fluctuation by now at least. Made me wonder if I was doing something wrong lol
 
don't worry I did a cycle w /fish and it took that long for my ammonia kit to register any ammonia in the tank!
but I must have seeded my tank somehow 'cause from measurable ammonia to 0 ammonia,0 nitrite and low nitrates only took about 2 weeks
 
Wow I went to my LFS today to pick up some frozen food and out of curiosity asked if they had any Bio-Spira. They didn't have that but they had something similar...so the guy asked what size tank it was and went to the back.

A few minutes later he came out with a clear bag of this brown liquid wrapped in a bigger clear bag of ice. I was kinda skeptical because it wasn't in like say a packaged bottle, but it only cost me like $10 bucks so I thought to myself why not, its only water that I'd mess up.

So I rushed home to dump it in the tank. Now 8 hours later I tested my water and found the Ammonia still at 4ppm which came down about 1ppm, and finally I had a nitrite reading of .25ppm!! I'm like super stoked. I waited a week just adding ammonia and got nothing and in 8 hours after adding this stuff it seems like I finally made progress.

Anyone know what this stuff may have been? I can't quite remember the name he said but I thought it may have been called "TURBO START" http://www.fritzpet.com/turbo700_main.html. Anyone ever used this? Like I said the stuff I got was a brownish red liquid that smelled absolutely horrible. Could Turbo Start be it?
 
By your description, it sounds like filter sludge. I don't know anything else that they would bag up for you like that, or anything that they would grow for resale.

Does sound like it had some BB in the to help lick start the filter, but only tome will tell if it holds up or not.

When you go back to the LFS ask to see the label of the stuff he gave you.

Keep us posted,

Dr Joe

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Thanks guys I'll keep updating. My nitrites seem to be doubling every 8 hours or so. Thats pretty normal right? I put the stuff in yesterday so its been about 32 hours...I've done 4 nitrite test readings.

Nitrites
Start - 0ppm
8 hours - .25ppm
16 hours - .50ppm
32 hours - 1ppm

Ammonia
Start - 4ppm
8 hours - 4ppm
16 hours - 3ppm to 6ppm (Added more ammonia probably a little too much)
32 hours - 4ppm

Nitrates
32 hours - 5ppm


Would you add any more Ammonia or let things chill overnight? I don't want my new bacteria dying of starvation
 
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