20 gal high cycling problems

I bought a 5 gal tank over 2 months ago and had 3 guppies (it was cycled fish less with ammonia). I recently about a month ago upgraded to a 20 gallon high tank. Since the guppies I've added 4 platies and 6 neons (slowly with 1 week apart). My guppies lived in the 20 gal tank by themselves with transferred media and I encountered 0 problems. I'm running a bio wheel 150, upgrading to 200 this weekend though. Ph is 7.0-7.2 and tank temp is 78.

Every day ive been getting an ammonia reading of .15-.25 ppm of ammonia. So I do a 30-50% water change with prime every day. I've had no nitrite spike and my nitrate went up to 40ppm at one point and is now matching my tap water at 5-10ppm.

Why am I not either seeing an ammonia spike from the new fish or nitrites? I'm starting to feel a bit aggravated because I've been putting a lot of time into this had a cycle and now it seems like I'm starting from square 1. My ammonia will not budge higher than .25 and reading remains consistent every day. I've lost my nitrates apparently and have only gotten about .1-.15 nitrite reading (it's now at 0 again).

 

Have you rinsed your filter media in tap water at all or replaced any of it?

After you transferred the guppies to the 20g, were you getting cycled readings of 0 ammonia and nitrite with some nitrates? What about after each of the additions? My guess is that, assuming you didn't touch the media or at least rinsed them in removed tank water, that your bacteria now has to catch up with the new bioload you added. Platys are poop machines.

Do you have Seachem Prime? I would dose that daily for the full volume of the tank as long as the ammonia and nitrite are <1ppm. If >1ppm, do a 50% water change. Keep doing this until you're cycled. It wouldn't hurt to pick up Seachem Stability (a bacteria supplement) to help get your cycle back on track.

Going forward, I would just add slowly and just 1-2 small fish at a time keeping an eye on your water parameters before and after each addition.

 

For the week with the guppies yes I was getting normal cycle readings. Even now though I've had nitrite and nitrate readings showing it was cycling properly. All of a sudden these past few days I'm down to no nitrites and no nitrates with my ammonia remaining constant. That's where I'm confused.

I haven't touched the the filter media even to rinse in the tank water. Been doing water changes every day with prime. I don't plan on adding anymore fish until the cycle stablizes again.

I'm just confused on how I've shocked my system somehow back to cycling from basically what seems like the very beginning. While I expected ammonia spikes when I added the new fish, I never got any and somehow managed to lose my good bacteria! That's what's got me scratching my head in confusion.

 

What are you using to test? It's possible your daily water changes are keeping the nitrates low/closer to your tap reading. You could still use a bacteria supplement like the one mentioned to get you back on track.

 

Using API to test my levels. Not sure why I can't seem to kick the ammonia though even when I was reading with nitrites and nitrates. my tap water does read 0.25 and my tank water is reading slightly under currently.

At say .25 ammonia would it be safe to water change every other day but dose with prime every day? Maybe I can get a better picture if I stop changing the water every day.

 

At say .25 ammonia would it be safe to water change every other day but dose with prime every day? Maybe I can get a better picture if I stop changing the water every day.

Yes. sounds like you restarted a cycle. maybe you didn't have enough BB or it died in the transfer. 5gal filter media to a 20gal media might need to build up more BB. at least from the levels you have stated.

Prime will take care of any ammonia and nitrites for 24-48hrs. I think you could check them daily to make sure they don't spike (1.0 or higher). if they do. 25% WC.

 

What were the normal cycle readings that you were getting after transferring the guppies to the 20g? Are you saying your ammonia was zero but you had SOME nitrite and more than 10ppm nitrates?

 

After transferring the guppies I had .15 ammonia, .15 nitrite and 15-20 ppm of nitrate. As soon as I added 2 platies my ammonia jumped to .25 (other readings remained stable). Earlier this week I had trace amount of nitrite and 40 ppm of nitrate. As of yesterday I'm still having .25 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5-10 nitrate.

Ive been confused as to why my ammonia never spiked and instead remained stable at .25 once the other fish were added (never increased as the fish were added week by week). Mainly though I'm just confounded on suddenly with no changes why I've lost nitrite and nitrate.

 

It was not going to spike since it sounds like it has some BB to work with.

However I'm trying my best to understand this and I now read earlier you did a fishless cycle? For how long?

If all you added to the new tank was the old filter media then you didn't have enough built up. How long has the 5 gal. Been running?

Fishless cycles take to long and their are plenty of hardy fish that will survive the cycle process if you know what your doing.

Adding fish the way you did probably gave the ammonia time to convert.

And I'm sorry you added a new filter?

 

Dollar per gallon sale at Petco till July 17

 

Fish less cycle I did took a little over 4 weeks before I had added my guppies. I transferred the bio filter from that over to the 20 gal filter I'm running now. So I had a new filter and the bio media from the old tank.

 

After transferring the guppies I had .15 ammonia, .15 nitrite and 15-20 ppm of nitrate. As soon as I added 2 platies my ammonia jumped to .25 (other readings remained stable). Earlier this week I had trace amount of nitrite and 40 ppm of nitrate. As of yesterday I'm still having .25 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5-10 nitrate.

Ive been confused as to why my ammonia never spiked and instead remained stable at .25 once the other fish were added (never increased as the fish were added week by week). Mainly though I'm just confounded on suddenly with no changes why I've lost nitrite and nitrate.

Did you ever have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and >10ppm nitrates in the 5g? Those are the numbers you should have seen of a cycled tank (>10ppm bc of your tap nitrates). If you didn't see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, your biofilter was never cycled. Because if you just did a simple transfer over to the 20 gallon with the same media and same fish, nothing should have changed. You should not have seen traces of ammonia and nitrite.

And if you didn't wait to get the ammonia and nitrite to 0 and added those platies, that would explain why you got that ammonia spike. You also did say you have .25 ammonia out of your tap, right? I'm thinking adding the additional fish overwhelmed your bacteria and you hit a minI cycle. If it were me, I would start dosing with Seachem Stability to cycle your tank.

 

Yes I was hitting 0 ammonia and nitrite in the 5 gal. Ammonia and nitrite showed up in the 20 gal though immediately at trace levels. Nitrite went to 0 ammonia stayed at trace amount and nitrate went up to 20. I figured the trace ammonia could be my bad eyesight and added the 2 platies. Since then I've had the .25 ammonia that won't go away. Nitrate fluxuates but I agree about the water changes with those numbers. So this small concentration of ammonia could be from a minI cycle then? I figured it had to be something like that so I have TSS+ I can add to help stabilize the bacteria. I guess I was confused since ammonia never spiked like some people on here mention.

 

Yes, you could add TSS+. It should help you process that bit of ammonia. Your water changes may have helped keep that ammonia down which is probably why you didn't see a huge spike.

 

Ugh after posting this the next day my ammonia and nitrite tested 0. Kept adding tss+ each day. Had a solid reading of 20 ppm nitrates. Yesterday back to .25 ppm of ammonia and 5 nitrate (same as tap). What the heck?!

 

It would've been better to add the entire bottle at once so you get all of the bacteria to get a chance to establish itself. With TSS+, you're not supposed to do a water change for 2 weeks and you're not supposed to add it within 24 hrs of adding a water conditioner.

How much is left in the bottle?

 

Most of it. I can dump it in no problem. Does it make sense I went almost a week with 0 ammonia then suddenly back to 0.25 ppm? No changes in tank fish, plants or anything else.

I wasn't doing a water change with the 0 ammonia reading. Just kept adding tss+ dosing for my tank size. That's why I wasn't sure where the sudden ammonia came from?

 

Tetra says it may give some weird results from testing so that's why you shouldn't bother testing during the 14 day period.

I'd just dump the entire bottle as instructed from their Q&A and then wait out the remaining week.. You can't overdose the stuff anyway.

 

Dare card any high readings though? Panicking a bit because my nitrites are now 1ppm! Haven't had nitrites reading this high!

 

Again, TSS supposedly gives off weird readings so they say unless your fish are acting weird, try to resist doing a water change.

Personally, I would have used Stability as mentioned previously since it will allow you to do water changes while the bacteria colonizes.