I have a 125g with a large wet-dry trickle filter, a Fluval 305 canister and a Fluval 4 in-tank filter. I've been trying to cycle it for over a month, but the nitrites are still very high. Ammonia spiked a while ago and is down to 0 now, which is good, but the nitrites have been high for about a week. I have 9 large peacock cichlids (african) in the tank now and I can't imagine this process has been very good for them, although they all look healthy. I'm starting the tank from scratch but used two biological starters (Cycle and AquaChargers). The last time I did this my tanks cycled much more quickly, but this one is taking much longer for some reason. Does anyone have any advice on what I should do? Just wait it out? I've heard of Bio-Spira being good but no shops that I've found in my area carry it. I'd like to speed up the cycling so that I don't keep exposing my peacocks to the high nitrites. Any help would be appreciated.
Need cycling advice!
- Thread starter Bassjedi
- Start date
when i first set up my 30 gal i had a lot of trouble with nitrites too. the tank began to cycle and then i got the spike. things like stress zyme and bio-spira (bio-spira is the best IMO) really saved my fish but it does take time, have you taken the carbon out of your filters? the carbon will remove the good bactiria from your tank before it gets a chance to colonize. good luck
A tank will take 6 weeks or more to cycle if you don't add anything to give it a jump start so you sound like you are almost there.
As for carbon hurting or removing bactiria I don't think that it will do it.
If you can't find Bio-Spira (I love it) you can get good results from seachem's stability, the only draw back is that you have to add some everyday for a week but it is a LOT less expensive.
As for carbon hurting or removing bactiria I don't think that it will do it.
If you can't find Bio-Spira (I love it) you can get good results from seachem's stability, the only draw back is that you have to add some everyday for a week but it is a LOT less expensive.
if you trust your lfs ask them to squeeze a filter for ya. only if you trust that they are desease free!!
what if you have a uv sterilizer? do you need to turn it off first to cycle the tank? or just leave it on? my 180 is on it's 10th day... and i bought some large feederst to get it going.
Just ride it out if you cant get material from an established filter.Do extra waterchanges to knock down the nitrites.Youre almost there