nitz

nothing's happening at all. i'm gonna do a near-full water change and use the aqua+

couldn't find safe start anywhere!! i looked on a few of the fish store sites and couldn't find it. looked for it at big als and they don't have it. i don't think they have it here yet

how's your cycle going?

Alessa

horrible. still stuck in the nitrite spike.

you could order the tetra safe start online. ebay or amazon.

If nothing happens with my tank i might just as well do the exact same thing.

Alessa

ok, you know what, nevermind. couldnt find it there.

it might be that you cant find it in canada, just like the biospira

nitz

sucks that they don't have it here. i looked through the forum and saw a guy from Canada who would drive down to the US and buy the SafeStart. i would've asked him to buy some for me but he's about a 2 hour drive from me. really sucks.

so your nitrites just won't move?? i think you should just give it a little more time. i read somewhere that the nitrite-to-nitrate bacteria take a little longer to establish than the ammonia-to-nitrite bacteria. stick in there a few more days and hopefully they'll just disappear.

Alessa

YES! It started to go down today YIPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

But I cant party yet... it still needs to get down to 0

it just did today... do you know what I did? i did a massive water change, just leaving nitrite to the .50 mark. then, added ammonia to the .50 mark. I added A LOT of filter mud... (about a cup full of green water and mud straight into the new filter, not the tank) and also some stress zyme (I think you guys have that)... and it worked!!!!

you should try the same... it sure worked!

nitz

Oh thanks Alessa!! It looks like it's just the two of us here but we're getting tons of views!! Congrats on being oh so close to the end of your cycle. I'm excited for you.

I actually did a massive water change today. Going to add the ammonia tomorrow.

I checked and we do have stress zyme!!
So excited that I can actually get something you suggested now. The other companies need to get on sending their products up to Canada, especially Bio Spira.

I was looking at Seachem Stability. Have you heard anything about it?

Alessa

I have heard it is also good... Never actually tried but if you decide to get this one im sure it wouldnt hurt!

nitz

Ok then. I think I'm gonna give it a week to try to cycle again on its own. I'll squeeze out my sponge into the filter to try to seed it and hopefully it takes off from there

oh...i totally forgot to say that when i started up this tank, i used the Big Als bio-support. it says that it contains so many million bacteria per teaspoonfull. i had bought it a while ago and thought it would help. i used it in my other tank when i cycled it (with fish) and i really have no idea whether it worked or not. anyways...i think this was expired or something and i didn't know because the other day when i went to use it, some black velvety looking stuff was coming out in the liquid. maybe this did something to my cycle? maybe it works like that ammo lock or cycle? anyways...i had put a lot in there when i set up the tank and only remember yesterday. did that massive water change and hopefully got rid of most of it.

Darlene

I was just reading through your posts, and wanted to say good luck with the cycles. I hope they start doing better for you both.

Nitz, I have a balloon ram, I'm not sure if that is the right name for them or not, but they look like a shorter, rounder blue or gold ram, to me anyway. I love this little guy. We also have a bolivian ram in the tank with him who also has a great personality. We call him our little chipmunk, because when he eats it looks like he has cheeks that puff out. Both of our rams are our favorite fish we have in there. Good luck with whatever you choose.

Alessa

Never tried the big al. I would stick to either stability or stress zyme because those are the only two that seem not to be like cycle.

If I were you, id get them. they arent expensive at all, you can get a small bottle It sure helped me!

and thanks darlene!

nitz

Oh thanks Darlene! That's great to know. When did you put the rams in? I heard they need "aged" water but wasn't sure if that meant a cycled tank or it just meant that you should wait a while even after the cycle completes to introduce them.

Alessa, I'll go out on the weekend and pick one of them up. You're right that they aren't expensive and if they're going to speed up my cycle, then I'm all for it!! I'll search the forum to see which one I should get but I'm leaning towards Stress Zyme right now since it worked for you.

Alessa

I dont know. I believe it worked for me since I added a lot of filter mud. I never thought it would actually help but it did!

good luck! let me know how it goes.

Darlene

Our tank was cycled, but only by about 2 weeks when we put them in, so it was cycled, but I don't know if I would say it aged. We have had the bolivian for about a month now and the balloon for 3 weeks and they are doing good. A Blue ram might be a little more picky than what we have though from what I have read.

nitz

That's good to know. I'll look around to see if I can find a balloon ram or even bolivians. Are both of them males?

Just curious Darlene, but since I'm struggling to cycle my tank and Alessa's nearing the end, how did you cycle your tank and how long did it take?

Darlene

They are both males and they get along ok. Before we had the balloon we had two bolivians, we were hoping that they were male and female but turned out to be two males. They didn't get along to well together, so we took back one and found the balloon. We only have a 20 gallon though.

We didn't know what we were doing with the cycle, we are one of those that cycled with fish because we didn't know better , until we found this site. We lost a lot of fish during our cycle. After we move we plan on getting a much bigger tank and will be doing the cycle right, without fish.

nitz

Oh don't worry about the cycling with fish. I'm sure a lot of people on this forum did it before they knew any better. When I cycled my other tank, it was with 6 silver tip tetras and I didn't know anything about the nitrogen cycle. My friend said he was expert when it came to fish but didn't tell me anything about cycling the tank. I didn't do daily water changes or test for anything so the fish probably experienced high ammonia and nitrite levels. Thankfully I didn't lose any. I guess they were just really hardy fish.

Darlene

Yeah I guess we all live and learn, but we are making sure next time to do it right.

welshalien

I found the Tetra Safe Start online here: http://www.paradisepetshop.net/

don't know if they ship to Canada. Mine was just delivered today (and I'm stuck at work!). I'll be using it to cycle my sister's first betta tank this weekend and I'll let you know how it goes.

Kelly