honeybunny

hi,
i have a 55 gallon tank. i heard from other forums that i need to cycle my tank before hand. I wanted to do fishless cycle and was told to place some raw fish into the tank and let it go bad. so i did. after a week later, my amonia has skyrocketed to toxic. i read somewhere that bio-spira works in cycling the tank is a couple of days. so i purchased it. i now have taken all of the raw fish out of the tank and put the bio-spira into the tank. after two days the amonia has not changed one bit and there is no trace of nitrate. what should i do. i don't want to give up but the cycling has been no change for sometime. what should i do? should i just wait? should i start all over? but if i wait, will my tank cycle, i don't have any fish in the tank only the amonia water and bio-spira. (info: i have a 55 gallon tank, heater at 80 degrees farenheit, eheim canister filter, bubble discs, and eco-complete sand).
Please help me!!!

sgould

Your fishlish cycle was going just fine. 1 week is not nearly enough time to cycle a tank...generally it takes 4-6 weeks, though it can take even longer.
Normally with Bio-Spira, you add it, then add fish right away. In this case, however, since you already had a high level of ammonia built up in the tank, you do not want to do that. I would put the raw fish back in the tank and continue to cycle, monitoring your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate regularly. Having added Bio-Spira, the process may move a little faster now, but you will need to be patient...cycling is unfortunately not a speedy process.

sgould

Oh, yeah...and Welcome to the site!

honeybunny

i have no more raw fish, can i just leave the tank the way it is? will it still cycle?

sgould

Without an ongoing source of ammonia, the bacteria you are trying to colonize will starve out and the tank will not cycle.

sirdarksol

Welcome to the site.

It sounds to me like you got a dead batch of BioSpira. Sgould is right that, without a constant source of ammonia, it will die off, but before doing so, it should have converted at least most of the ammonia to nitrites/nitrates. For it to not have an impact on the nitrite or nitrate levels in your tank suggests to me that it was dead.

honeybunny

what do you recommend me to do? i don't want to wait too long. should i just empty out the tank and start over? will bio-spira really die? how will i know if it is alive or dead?

SereneReyn

don't empty the tank, you can keep going with something other than raw fish, like fish food (though be aware that flakes often have excess phosphates and could lead to an algae outbreak later). bio-spira is a living bacteria, and like any other organism, needs an ongoing food source - in this case, ammonia. it is typically refrigerated (i believe this is to slow down the metabolic rate, creating a lesser demand for food?) until used. it could be that yours was out of a fridge for too long a period (and starved), etc... you can try again with new bio-spira, though there's really no way to tell if it's alive or dead until you try it. otherwise, you're kind of stuck waiting until nature takes it's course and bacteria builds up on its own (could take weeks). there's a post on here somewhere that tells how do cycle your tank... i'm not sure where, but if you look around you'll find it.

good luck!

honeybunny

i have a stupid question, (in my case) where does the bacteria come from?

sirdarksol

That's not a stupid question. It's actually a brilliant question. (I often wonder the same thing about algae).
All I can think of is that trace amounts of nitrifying bacteria survive in most things that come into contact with water. Fish food, fish, plants, etc... The stuff has to be everywhere on the planet, or life wouldn't exist. It's probably one of the most important forms of life. It starts growing when we start feeding it.

And I agree with Serene. Don't start over. Find something else to feed the tank with. If you've got straight cleaning ammonia (no scents), that would probably be the best way to feed the tank. You've got at least one week in the cycle. Even if the BioSpira didn't work, there were likely at least a few bacterial cells alive to seed the tank (the beauty of the stuff is that when a cell dies, it bleeds off ammonia, feeding the others. Still, this can only last for so long, especially if it's not refrigerated. As Serene said, refrigeration slows their metabolism to let them last longer). Things should get started soon.
Another dose of BioSpira would hurt only your wallet. If you buy from a store, though, I would ask them when they got the stuff in. Even in the fridge, it only lasts six months or so, I think.

SereneReyn

sir's right on. there are all different sorts of bacteria all over everything... if you don't clean your tub or toilet for awhile, you'll be able to see tons of bacteria growing in there - not that you'd want to... point is, it's there already... but they're so small you can't tell until there're billions and billions of them... and in the case of a fish tank, they can't sufficiently do their job until they've really moved in and made themselves comfy (with your abundant food supply). patience is really the hardest part of the whole process... especially when you're eager to run out and get fish. but you're really doing the fish a huge favor by waiting.

COBettaCouple

Welcome to Fishlore.

I would recommend getting Prime to use as the water conditioner. Especially while the tank isn't cycled.