JstJake

My cycle reset itself!!!!

last week I had readings of 0 amonia 0 nitrite and 50 nitrate..

It proccessed 4 PPM of ammonia in just over 24 hours...pretty much cycled yeah??

well this week I found that the 3.7 ppm of ammonia I added on monday (to stop the bacteria from starving), is now at 2.7 ppm. I can't see any nitrites whatsoever and nitrate is at 30.


This is a mystery to me, how can a tank go from cycled to uncycled in a matter of days! All I can think of is that somehow I've killed my bacteria, but how?

I recently measured my pH. it's fallen to 5!!

I guess this is because the bacteria have a lowering effect on the ph level?

what should I do? I guess if I do a big water change then the ph will go up again (2 weeks ago it was almost 8) to it's original level.

Should I just keep on adding ammonia and waiting? Any advice anyone??

Thanks, Jake

richard7467

ok firstly dont worry about the ph the ammonia effects it so theres no point testing dont do a water change just keep adding ammonia daily until you raise the ammonia levels to 5ppm then just wait have a look at my sticky on fishless cycling with ammonia the whole process takes around 6 weeks

jdhef

Also if you are using the ATI liquid test kit for nitrates, you need to really, really, really shake bottle #2. I also pound it into the palm of my hand a few times to insure it is really shaken well. The solids in bottle #2 tend to participate out of the liquid and unless they get re-suspended in the liquid, you will get a false nitrate reading.

mitch

did you add fish, or did you over clean,

Lucy

It doesn't sound like you killed the cycle, just overwhelmed it a bit since you don't have nitrIte readings, but still have nitrAtes.
(I've done the same thing)

To keep the cycle going without fish, just add a couple of drops of ammonia, the tank doesn't need a whole lot.

I did a water change to get the ammonia down.

JstJake

no fish added yet.

when you say overclean, I didn't think that was possible, I did remove 90% of the alge but I didn't change any water ect.

I'm not showing nitrite now, but I did go through the 'spike' which lasted around a week, then it dropped to zero suddenly and since then I've not seen any nitrite, prehaps anything being created is being consumed to quickly?

I'm just adding 4 ppm of ammonia whenever it drops below .5

hopefully it will start to drop quicker

Alessa

I found out (during my own fishless cycling and reading articles online) that the cycle might come to a stop. Also, the bacteria might lack of oxygen and become overwhelmed by too much ammonia, causing a die-off.

when i kept my ammonia and mitrite at .50-2ppm, my cycle finished in 3 days, after being stuck for about 2 weeks.

and whatever you do, please dont add fish until you're done

JstJake

yeahI 've got an air disc going, with a massive amount of surface disturbance down the other whole half of the tank so I shouldn't think that oxegen would be a problem, prehaps I did overwhelm the bacteria with ammonia and cause a bit of a slow down.

I didn't think you could over-feed the little fellas!

Alessa

what i did was to change the water until my levels were down, and kept them like that until I was done... 3 days later.

JstJake

my ammonia is still at 2.5 five days after I added 3.7.

Bearing in mind that a week ago, my tank would clear 3.7 in less than 36 hours.


What shall I do? Water change it to zero? then add another 3 ppm?

I'm bit lost to be honest!

richard7467

no just be patient it will come.