MamaFish

I am ending the 11th week of cycling our 6 gallon tank by adding ammonia. The nitrite spike has finally ended and today I got a reading of 0 PPM. I have been feeding the tank ammonia whenever it drops to zero. I got a reading of .25 ppm this morning. I am pretty sure it will be zero again by tomorrow. The thing is that most of the instructions for cycling indicate that you are cycled when your tank can convert 4-5 ppm of Ammonia to 0 ppm in 12 - 24 hours. It is still taking 4-5 days in my tank. I am assuming this is because it is so small. Is it okay if I go ahead and add fish? We are only going to have a single betta, so the load should not be heavy.

Thanks!

Meenu

What are your nitrates at?

MamaFish

Nitrates are at 5 ppm

Lucy

I'm sorry, but if it's taking that long, you're not cycled yet.
Close, but not quite. Hang in there.

navyscuba

I'm with Lucy on this one. If your tank is taking that long I don't think is cycled yet.

MamaFish

*Sigh* Okay we'll keep going... I was wondering about the pH. It has been dropping and is down to 6. My understanding is that when the PH is low it can cause the bacteria to go dormant and stop the cycling. The PH of my tap water is higher - 7.6 Should I do a partial water change and try to bring the PH up? Anything else I can do to raise it? Will this help the process?

Meenu

Yes, try a 20% change.