Help: Tank Still Cycling!!!!!

Chase J · February 3rd, 2009

ITS GETTING VERY FRUSTRATING NOW> THE TANK IS STILL CYCLING! What am I doing wrong. I startd using cycle to help the tank cycle but ive had no good results. The ammonia levels are at 2.0ppm and yet the fish are not suffering. I got curious and tested for nitrite 0ppm so I got curious again and tested for nitrate 0ppm. So now I feel that there are no bacteria in the tank. I also just got a new filter because my crappy tetra whisper wasnt doing jack! I got an Aqua Clear 50. I am very frustrated now. What should I do?

Shawnie · February 3rd, 2009

cycle doesnt have the appropriate bacteria needed to cycle a tank...it doesnt sustain itself...you need some testra safestart which is pure bacteria that you need or go with the pure ammonia method ....

from the fishlore recommendations

Option 3:
Use 100% pure ammonia.
Using a dropper, add 5 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water. If you don't get an ammonia reading with your test kit, add some more drops until you start to see an ammonia reading. Keep track of how many drops you've used so you can repeat this process daily. Continue to dose the tank with ammonia until you start to get nitrite readings with your test kit. Once you can detect nitrites you should only add 3 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water, or if you added more drops originally to get an ammonia reading cut the amount of drops used in half. Continue this process daily until you get nitrate readings with your test kit. Do a 30% water change and your tank is ready.

Chase J · February 3rd, 2009

Shawnie,
Cycle Says that it is pure bacteria and unless you telll me that safestart works from your own experience I will not be happy with that answer.

Shawnie · February 3rd, 2009

cycle doesnt do what it says...once you stop using it the bacteria dies....and yes ive used it...cycle wont self sustain itself

Dozey · February 3rd, 2009

Since you have fish in the tank you will not be able to use the ammonia method. Cycle adds terrestrial bacteria and not aquatic bacteria. TSS adds aquatic bacteria.

As Cycle adds terrestrial bacteria (which basically drowns in water) is why they suggest that you need to add it weekly. In addition to dying off the terrestrial bacteria will remove ammonia from your water and in doing so it starves aquatic bacteria.

cg49me · February 3rd, 2009

For the other side, I've been having good results with SafeStart. My tanks aren't completely cycled yet, but they're getting there.

Nate McFin · February 3rd, 2009

As Dozey said cycle with fish your already have your ammonia source and you are really stuck with doing water changes everyday to keep ammonia levels down until the tank cycles. Less is more I am finding when adding ANYTHING to the tank including products like cycle or stresszyme.

cg49me · February 3rd, 2009

I believe Stress Zyme is on the same list as Cycle - it adds non-self-sustaining bacteria, and you'll have to add it for the life of the tank.

This isn't to say it doesn't do what it's intended to do, but if you do an actual cycle, you won't have to spend $X.XX for a bottle of Sress Zyme/Cycle every few months.

Dozey · February 3rd, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan Allen

As Dozey said cycle with fish your already have your ammonia source and you are really stuck with doing water changes everyday to keep ammonia levels down until the tank cycles. Less is more I am finding when adding ANYTHING to the tank including products like cycle or stresszyme.

Just to add to Nathan’s post… Daily water changes with the use of Prime or Stress Coat Plus will keep ammonia and nitrites low while also detoxifying them for 24 hours allowing aquatic bacteria to grow.

Nate McFin · February 3rd, 2009

You are correct Cg! I learned the hard way.

I bought ALOT of stuff that I may as well throw away due to bad advice at several stores. I wouldn't give it to anyone and I wont use it...so it sits on a shelf for now next to my $2.00 bottle of ammonia. LOL

Shawnie · February 3rd, 2009

oops didnt read about the fish there...sorry ...my brunette moments are horendous today! ....tss is the best bet as others have said and yes stress zyme is API's version of cycle

jdhef · February 4th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chase J

ITS GETTING VERY FRUSTRATING NOW> So now I feel that there are no bacteria in the tank. I also just got a new filter because my crappy tetra whisper wasnt doing jack! I got an Aqua Clear 50. I am very frustrated now. What should I do?

If you replaced your filter with a new one, you removed all of your bacteria when you removed the old filter cartridge, which will pretty much put you back to square one.

I agree that Tetra SafeStart is the way to go at this point.

agabr123 · February 4th, 2009

since you have fish in there, i have to agree with everyone else, TSS is the only thing that is going to work unless you let it cycle naturally with the fish but you'll have to do 50% daily water changes with prime.

there have been a pretty significant number of threads on here of people that have used cycle but didn't add it every single time and their cycle crashed, that's not something that i would want to risk or suggest that you risk either

Chase J · February 7th, 2009

Okay guys ive been checking the ammonia and it is staying at 2.0 there is no changing it ive been doing water changes and it just stays there at two. always, never changes, stays there, I AM FRUSTRATED AND VERY UNHAPPY. Oh and by the way the fish are all fine they are acting perfectly ormal which is sort of strange with that kind of ammonia level. the cories normally tell me when theres ammo in the tank cuz there tails beging to turn red but there white now perfectly normal (albino cories)

I think im giving up. Its just put so much stress on me that i dont care anymore. I don't even wanna set up my 5 gallon betta tank anymore

Lucy · February 7th, 2009

Are you doing daily 50% water changes? If not how often are you changing it?
Did you stop using Cycle? (I hope so)
If so, it's only been a few days since you stoped using Cycle. The bacteria has to have a chance to build back up.
What test kit are you using?

Chase J · February 7th, 2009

I am no longer doing 50s thats too much water to replace my pet store said. and im just doing 30% about every other day and no i did not stop using cycle because it keeps my fish from dying of ammo poisoning but im on my last bottle and once that runs out im gonna waste another 15 bucks on tss and get more frustrated and then im gonna give up sounds like a plan huh?

Oka i meant that in a humorous way not a mean way

Lucy · February 7th, 2009

Chase, the members all gave good advice in all your threads.
If you don't want to take it, why are you asking?

I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but since the pet store gave you the advice, why don't you ask them why your ammonia is still so high?
We've advised you on what you can do to help your situation, you don't follow that advice then come here complaining.

Chase J · February 7th, 2009

arnet you gonn reply?

okay fine ill do water changes for the rest of my life

Nate McFin · February 7th, 2009

The point is you won't have to do water changes for the rest of your life if you follow the advice of all the people who have been kind enough to take time out of their day to answer your question.
1. Keep using Cycle...and continue with water changes. Never cycle.
2. Use TSS to jumpstart and stop using cycle
3. do water changes until it cycles and stop using cycle.
Three choices.

Red1313 · February 7th, 2009

Chase cycling a tank can be frustrating but I've cycled a large number of my tanks with TSS and it works like a charm. Toss the bottle of cycle out. Do a water change and rinse your media so non of the cycle bacteria remain and dump the safe-start in. Then sit down and watch you're tank for a week. do a water test after 7 days, you're tank should be cycled. If not wait 3 more days and then test and do a water change and you'll be done. No more frustration and no more headaches.

cerianthus · February 7th, 2009

Hang in there, Young man!

Since you have fish and Cycle isnt helping it seems, First Cut down on feeding which will help you to control ammonia (NH3) and Nitrite (NO2) somewhat during cycling. I mean feed every other day sparingly. If anything, fish can suffer/die due to exposure to NH3, NO2 rather than from starvation during cycling.

How is pH? Is pH slightly acidic? Toxicity of NH3 dpendent on pH and temp but more so on pH since tank temp is/should be stable..
When pH is acidic (pH lowered than 7) then more NH3 will be in form of non toxic Ammonium ion(NH4+) and when pH is alkaline or basic (pH higher than 7) then more in toxic NH3 form.
Your test reading are total of both. Thus if pH is on acidic side, should not worry about too much although small partial water change will definitely help.

I dont know how long ago you put fish in?

I agree w/ LFS that large water changes at once can stall cycling at this phase. I would rather do small but more frequent water changes as needed. Do not touch the filter or vacuum the gravel. Just simple water changes during cycling.

BTW, what type of test kits are you using? Does your NH3 test kit has 2 bottles of reagents or one bottle of reagent?

As far as Cycle product, do this test for me. Take the sample of tap water and perform NH3 test. If result is Zero, then add ONE drop of Cycle into test tube to see it color changes. I dont remember the results since did so long ago.
If the color changes, stop using this product.

I've always cycled my tanks, both fishless and w/ fish, without such products as Cycle, Streszyme, etc. since my experiments of such products did not prove much advantages when compared to tank w/o using such products ( maybe wasting your hard earned money from working at your dad 's shop).
Only product which made sense to me was Turbo Start by Fritzpets which will be shipped overnight and has month life in refrigerator. But Dont buy this one either at this pahse.

Do understand that when fish are added, you also added beneficial bacteria to start off since it will come with fish and water (drop of water can contain lots of bacteria, it just need time to settle in your tank to perform their duty. By adding unneccessary additves or doing massive changes, may disturb stablization of these bacteria).

Just have a patience and CUT down on feeding.

Try to log all the event with dates. May be you can use cycling process as your Science Project as have done with my children, that is if have not use this topic yet.

You are going thru one battle and you'll need to battle another one w/ nitrite. But I am confident that you will come out as Victor since you seemed to enjoy keeping fish no matter how frustrating it may be from time to time.

Hope all goes well.

Chase J · February 10th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by cerianthus

Hang in there, Young man!

Since you have fish and Cycle isnt helping it seems, First Cut down on feeding which will help you to control ammonia (NH3) and Nitrite (NO2) somewhat during cycling. I mean feed every other day sparingly. If anything, fish can suffer/die due to exposure to NH3, NO2 rather than from starvation during cycling.

How is pH? Is pH slightly acidic? Toxicity of NH3 dpendent on pH and temp but more so on pH since tank temp is/should be stable..
When pH is acidic (pH lowered than 7) then more NH3 will be in form of non toxic Ammonium ion(NH4+) and when pH is alkaline or basic (pH higher than 7) then more in toxic NH3 form.
Your test reading are total of both. Thus if pH is on acidic side, should not worry about too much although small partial water change will definitely help.

I dont know how long ago you put fish in?

I agree w/ lfs that large water changes at once can stall cycling at this phase. I would rather do small but more frequent water changes as needed. Do not touch the filter or vacuum the gravel. Just simple water changes during cycling.

BTW, what type of test kits are you using? Does your NH3 test kit has 2 bottles of reagents or one bottle of reagent?

As far as Cycle product, do this test for me. Take the sample of tap water and perform NH3 test. If result is Zero, then add ONE drop of Cycle into test tube to see it color changes. I dont remember the results since did so long ago.
If the color changes, stop using this product.

I've always cycled my tanks, both fishless and w/ fish, without such products as Cycle, Streszyme, etc. since my experiments of such products did not prove much advantages when compared to tank w/o using such products ( maybe wasting your hard earned money from working at your dad 's shop).
Only product which made sense to me was Turbo Start by Fritzpets which will be shipped overnight and has month life in refrigerator. But Dont buy this one either at this pahse.

Do understand that when fish are added, you also added beneficial bacteria to start off since it will come with fish and water (drop of water can contain lots of bacteria, it just need time to settle in your tank to perform their duty. By adding unneccessary additves or doing massive changes, may disturb stablization of these bacteria).

Just have a patience and CUT down on feeding.

Try to log all the event with dates. May be you can use cycling process as your Science Project as have done with my children, that is if have not use this topic yet.

You are going thru one battle and you'll need to battle another one w/ nitrite. But I am confident that you will come out as Victor since you seemed to enjoy keeping fish no matter how frustrating it may be from time to time.

Hope all goes well.

I use the API Master Kit(one nitrite bottle, two nitrates, two ammonia, one ph, and one high range ph)

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