Ammonia not dropping. Crashed cycle??

Hi everyone so ive been cycling for almost 3 months now and im still a newbie at this, so any advice from more experienced keepers will be really helpfulTIA.

The first pic is my parameters a week ago. It was perfect i thought i was finally cycled. Reading was 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 10ppm nitrate. But i wasn't getting any aquatics for another couple days so i kept dosing ammonia whenever it went down.

The next day I noticed my ammonia didn’t drop after 24hrs like it did a few days before & nitrates went up to 80ppm . So I posted on a group and they said my nitrates were way too high and thats why my ammonia wasn't goin down & said i need to do about a 50% water change so i did.

Few days later and the second Pic is my readings from today and the last 3 days. After the wc i managed to get the nitrates down to about 10-20ppm (dosed ammonia to 4ppm after wc) But my ammonia Is not budging.

Now im lost at what to do. The only problem is my ammonia everything else is fine.Did i crash my cycle? Im not sure what caused it. Is there any way i can fix it? Please help thank you!

Parameters today:
Ammonia 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate:10-20ppm
PH: 7.6

 

Howdy mate! Some quick questions. How big is your tank? What filter media are you using and how much do you have. Do you have a planted tank? Decorations? or is it just a bare tank? Have you cleaned the filters or removed any of the plants/decorations or anything you've added to the tanks? Have you removed any filters?

Your tank is still cycled as you can see your nitrates are still going up which is good. You added quite a bit of ammonia and its probably just taking your bacteria some time to consume it all, but thats just my first assumption. Would only crash if you removed your beneficial bacteria really and after 3 months you should definitely have a good amount of bacteria in there.

 

Howdy mate! Some quick questions. How big is your tank? What filter media are you using and how much do you have. Do you have a planted tank? Decorations? or is it just a bare tank? Have you cleaned the filters or removed any of the plants/decorations or anything you've added to the tanks? Have you removed any filters?

Your tank is still cycled as you can see your nitrates are still going up which is good. You added quite a bit of ammonia and its probably just taking your bacteria some time to consume it all, but thats just my first assumption. Would only crash if you removed your beneficial bacteria really and after 3 months you should definitely have a good amount of bacteria in there.

Hi! Thanks for the reply! I have a 40 gal breeder with two sponge filters. No live plants. I have fake plants, sand for substrate and some decor in the tank. I haven’t removed any of the decorations. None of the filters were removed or cleaned as well. Everything has been the same since I started cycling no changes made whatsoever.

I didn’t have trouble w dosing to 4ppm beforehand. That’s why im so confused when it suddenly stopped when i haven’t done anything that would cause that. Think its been about 5 days with it still at 4ppm.Thats what i thought as well maybe i should just wait it out and leave it be for now?

Im also wondering if it had something to do w nitrites? Im new at this but aren’t your nitrites suppose to spike really high? though the highest mine got was only 0.50ppm but i didnt have trouble with getting nitrates. Maybe just thinking way into it and its different w every tank, but thats really the only reason i could think of.

Sorry for the long message. Any suggestions you could give would help a ton Thank you

 

5 days and your ammonia hasn't budged huh? and you still have no nitrites but are gaining nitrates? I'd probably just not touch anything and keep testing daily. Do you happen to know what your KH and GH are? Sometimes the cycle can "stall" if you run out of carbonates in your water as I think the bacteria use it also. IMO doing nothing and continuing to test your water is probably your best bet though the hardest to do

Dont do any water changes or vacuum or clean filters or anything. Since you are doing a fishless cycle you dont have to worry about water quality and it will let your bacteria really get established. A lot of times the nitrite -> nitrate process can happen quickly and you wont get a nitrite reading at all which is why you aren't seeing any. You should start to see the ammonia drop in the next few days as your bacteria eat it up.

 

I agree with Darthmoli, I would not dose anymore ammonia right now and sit back for a few days and let things stabilize. It is hard as he said but since you have no fish right now take a break from it and in a few days see where your water parameters are at. Let the bacteria get caught up and level out. Good luck with the tank.

Also, when you are ready, try some live plants in there to help with the nitrates, food for the plants. A planted tank really helps keep the water nice and your fish will love it so much more then plastics. If you are running a canister filter, as I do, depending on filter media you use you may have high Nitrate readings. Mine are higher in my tank but fish and plants are doing great. I have not lost one fish since starting my most recent tank and it has not been set up as long as yours. Mine is heavily planted and stocked heavily with fish.

 

5 days and your ammonia hasn't budged huh? and you still have no nitrites but are gaining nitrates? I'd probably just not touch anything and keep testing daily. Do you happen to know what your KH and GH are? Sometimes the cycle can "stall" if you run out of carbonates in your water as I think the bacteria use it also. IMO doing nothing and continuing to test your water is probably your best bet though the hardest to do

Dont do any water changes or vacuum or clean filters or anything. Since you are doing a fishless cycle you dont have to worry about water quality and it will let your bacteria really get established. A lot of times the nitrite -> nitrate process can happen quickly and you wont get a nitrite reading at all which is why you aren't seeing any. You should start to see the ammonia drop in the next few days as your bacteria eat it up.

Sorry for the late response. Just tested again parameters are; ammonia between 2-4ppm, nitrites 0ppm, nitrates 20ppm. I have no idea what my KH & GH are unfortunately lol this is my first time cycling a tank Ok so no water changes, got it. Hopefully it starts dropping in a couple days fingers crossed! Thank you!

 

I agree with Darthmoli, I would not dose anymore ammonia right now and sit back for a few days and let things stabilize. It is hard as he said but since you have no fish right now take a break from it and in a few days see where your water parameters are at. Let the bacteria get caught up and level out. Good luck with the tank.

Also, when you are ready, try some live plants in there to help with the nitrates, food for the plants. A planted tank really helps keep the water nice and your fish will love it so much more then plastics. If you are running a canister filter, as I do, depending on filter media you use you may have high Nitrate readings. Mine are higher in my tank but fish and plants are doing great. I have not lost one fish since starting my most recent tank and it has not been set up as long as yours. Mine is heavily planted and stocked heavily with fish.

Okay I haven’t been adding ammonia since its stopped dropping. But if it does start to go down significantly would it be okay to dose again?

I wanted to try live plants as well! but i got a little intimidated with all the care & requirements, I feel like mine would die in an instant lolead: But i definitely wanna get live plants in the future once i do more research on how to care for them properly. Plus they look 100x better than fake plants. Thank for the suggestion!

 

Yea give it 3 days and your ammonia should drop and nitrates should raise. Once your ammonia is 0 you should do a large water change to clear out your nitrates and then you should be fine to add your first fish. Start with the hardiest of the ones you plan on stocking your tank with.

 

Okay I haven’t been adding ammonia since its stopped dropping. But if it does start to go down significantly would it be okay to dose again?

I wanted to try live plants as well! but i got a little intimidated with all the care & requirements, I feel like mine would die in an instant lolead: But i definitely wanna get live plants in the future once i do more research on how to care for them properly. Plus they look 100x better than fake plants. Thank for the suggestion!

Sure you can dose again if you want to keep the cycle alive if you arent going to be adding any fish. You probably dont need 4ppm unless you plan on full stocking the tank all at once which I dont recommend. Just remember you should wait until the ammonia goes down to 0 before adding fish or they are gonna have a bad time.

There are a ton of plants that are super easy to grow even if you dont know what your doing and it lets you experiment a little and get used to plants. Hornwort, Moneywort, java moss, wisteria will all grow likes weeds in almost any water. Java ferns can also be very hardy and though it may grow slow it wont die XD