First time failed, second time failed, third time's the charm?

ALL feedback/opinions/advice is/are welcome at any time, as I will be updating in this thread regularly.

Alright, hello! The name's Bekkah. I joined the forum a couple months back with my 10G tank I was attempting to cycle, and unfortunately I haven't had much progress with it. It's been over a month and the ammonia levels haven't dropped below 4ppm. I tested it every day but eventually became too busy to check it every day after I started my new job, but I still checked it frequently enough and the ammonia levels still won't drop below 4ppm. I was doing the fishless, pure ammonia cycle after having failed doing my first fish-in cycle. I was trying to be patient, but it seems I may have done something wrong to mess up the cycle, because why would it take this long otherwise?

Regardless of that, cue last night. A friend of mine had to move some of his stuff out of his house since he was moving, and he gifted me a 60G tank for free! Although it has no lid, it came with a perfect wooden stand and it's in very good condition. I think this will give me more leg room for the kinds of live plants I want, and a wider variety of fish, but before I start this up I want to make sure that I'm doing it right and my efforts won't be in vain. So I guess my questions are:

1) Should I stick to the pure ammonia cycle? The guide I followed before was this one ( https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/ammonia-instructions-for-a-fishless-cycle.19627/ ) and it didn't seem to work, as my 10G never completely cycled. If I shouldn't, should I try the fish food method or the raw fish method? How would I go about that? Or are there better guides to the pure ammonia cycle I could follow?

2) I do have an API test kit, a bottle of Seachem Prime, a bottle of AquaSafe+, a GH and KH test kit, a couple air pumps that will probably be insufficient for the new 60G tank, and the purest Janitorial Strength Ammonia that I was trying to cycle my 10G tank with. Do I need anything else for the cycle? Is anything significantly different when dealing with a larger tank?

3) Should I still use my 10G tank but empty it out and redo the cycle? I feel like I'm throwing a way a little bit of hard work, with all the research I put into the kind of fish and plants I wanted in it, and the patience I had while waiting it to get below 6ppm in its ammonia levels, even if it hasn't moved below 4ppm since, and all the equipment I bought for a tank specifically that size. I was thinking another option could be I could use the 10G as a QT tank when needed, but I'm unsure of what to just yet.

I'd appreciate any and all help, as I'm getting frustrated and don't want to throw away this wonderful hobby because I feel I'm a failure.

 

HI Bekkah, first off will you test your tap water for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, ph, GH and KH and post them here?

I think you could do the fishless cycle but I'd suggest to pick up some Seachem Stability to seed the media with live bacteria.

Fill up the tank,
Dose prime,
Warm the tank up to 80-82, start your filter running,
Add in in ammonia but this time only to 2.0-3.0ppm
Add in stability daily following the directions on the bottle.

Just to verify the ingredients in your ammonia bottle are just ammonia and water right?

 

Thank you so much for the swift response! Those levels you asked for the tap water are as follows:

Ammonia: 1 ppm
Nitrites: 0 PPM
Nitrates: 0 PPM
pH: 7.6, potentially a little higher. That's the highest rating on the color scale, should I use the high range pH tester?
GH: 196.9 (I've actually never tested this out, is that pretty high?)
KH: 53.7

I was told to pick up Seachem Stability at one point, does it really make that much of a difference? I figured I needed SOME kind of bacteria to get it started in there, but I wasn't too fond of the fish food cycle and I wanted to keep it a fishless cycle, so that was out of the question. Hopefully Stability will help me out, then! Is it something I can safely purchase on Amazon?

And you are suggesting are start over, then? Empty the tank I have now and follow your instructions? If my heater I have only reaches the high 70s (which it seems it does) is it necessary for me to buy a new one? And yes, the ingredients in the ammonia I bought are just ammonia and water. It's called Janitorial Strength Ammonia and it comes in a gallon bottle that you can pick up at any Ace Hardware. It was the most suggested pure ammonia I received.

Should I follow the rest of the steps in that guide other than only putting in 3 ppm of ammonia?

 

Are you going to just use the 60 then? and the 10 for a qt? If the 60 is already filled up you don't need to empty it. If you want to cycle the 10 gallon at the same time I would start over with new water but first test for ammonia and nitrites and nitrates in the 10 gallon and let me know where they're at. Its up to you which tank(s) you want to cycle.

If you're not going to use the 10 gallon right now then I would empty the 10g, take the entire filter and move it over to the 60g, you'll need to get another filter but you can start it with just the one. You want roughly 10-15x the tank size in GPH so you'd want roughly 600gph in total filtration.

Seachem Stability is very much worth purchasing to get the cycle going, hopefully within two weeks you'll have a cycle. Yeah, you can get it on amazon.

Yes, use the high range test.

You're GH is perfect for livebearers and other fish can adjust to hard water. Its not so hard it would prevent you from keeping the fish you want.

You KH on the other hand is low and this might be why the second cycle actually failed. I would order or pick up some crushed coral or aragonite sand or limestone or sea shells etc. This will help buffer your water and keep the PH from dropping.

There is not much to the fishless instructions other than to let the ammonia drop to below 1.0 before re-dosing it back up to 2.0-3.0. You will always want to dose prime in the future when you have fish for the full volume of the tank during water changes with your tap ammonia being 1.0. Once cycled your bio-filter will easily convert that in 24 hours.

If you want to keep a running log in this thread I can help you out (as well as others).

 

I'm definitely going to use the 60G for my main tank now. I'm unsure of whether I want the 10G tank to be a QT tank or a tank for breeding, but I'm unsure of how big a tank has to be to breed, so it might just be a QT tank.

The levels for the 10G at this moment are:
Ammonia: 5-6 ppm (lol it looks like it even went up, which is discouraging.)
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 0 ppm

The filter that's been on for the 10G isn't going to effect the 60G's levels at all or anything if I move it over, correct? Is there a way I could get one single strong filter, or will I definitely need two?

I'm about to order Stability, thank you so much for the suggestion!

The high range pH for my tap water is 8.2 PPM.

I never even thought about how the KH could be a problem, that's a good point. Could aragonite sand be used as substrate for the tanks?

Thank you again for all your help, it certainly keeps me from being discouraged.

 

Whats the ph in the 10g?

Yes you can use aragonite sand if you want if should hold your ph at 8.2.

Moving the filter won't hurt anything. I personally feel its always best to have two filters in case one fails while you're not home, or worse on a trip or something. That way the nitrogen cycle will continue to do its thing!

 

You don't need to have high doses of ammonia (ppm) for doing the cycle. If you start out with less it will be easier on the bacteria and you can increase the dosage slightly after you see initial success to accommodate a larger bioload.
The bacteria needs to come from somewhere which is why it's recommended to use seachem stability or even a ghost shrimp to add a few bacteria to the tank. I would stick to stability.

 

The high range pH for the 10G looks to be between 8.0-8.2.

Would epsom salt have any good effect towards helping the hardness in the water? I thought I'd heard about its benefits somewhere.

The filter I have now is a simple HOB one, it's brand is Tetra, I believe. This may sound like a silly question, but do all filters come with media already in them? If I took a closer look I'd probably be able to figure out where it's at/how to change it, but I was just wondering. Do you have any brand suggestions for filters for larger tanks?

That makes sense! I always thought I'd needed to add something to get the bacteria going, maybe that's what I was also missing the second go around. Is it detrimental to the ghost shrimp to put them in the tank while it's cycling?

 

It might die which is why I suggested a ghost shrimp. They go for around a dollar each.
I still recommend stability because it's more humane and you have it as a back up anytime the cycle goes wacky.
For adding minerals to the tank it's better to add something like mineral rocks as they last a very long time(years) and will be more efficient(you can't mess up with the proportions) and more economical.

 

You only need to change the filter cartridges if they fall apart or if you want to get rid of chemicals or medications from the tank.
And when you you do have to do it get seachem Purigen. You can keep recharging them for a long, long, long time.

 

And the bags they come in are good quality so they don't fall apart.

 

It's always a good idea to have an extra sponge filter but I don't know much about big aquariums so I'll let someone else get to that.

 

Answers below.

Would epsom salt have any good effect towards helping the hardness in the water? I thought I'd heard about its benefits somewhere.

No, you don't want to use epsom because it actually draws water out of their bodies. People often use it for a week max when they have a fish with dropsy. Your water hardness is fine I promise. Fish adjust to harder water way easier than soft. Unless you are trying to breed a particular type of fish then they'll be fine.

The filter I have now is a simple HOB one, it's brand is Tetra, I believe. This may sound like a silly question, but do all filters come with media already in them? If I took a closer look I'd probably be able to figure out where it's at/how to change it, but I was just wondering. Do you have any brand suggestions for filters for larger tanks?

Yes, all filters come with some media. Lots of people like aqua clears. You'll need to take the media out once a week or so once you have fish to rinse it in old tank or dechlorinated tap. You'll also want to clean out the impeller tube monthly. You will become a pro at disassembling your filters

That makes sense! I always thought I'd needed to add something to get the bacteria going, maybe that's what I was also missing the second go around. Is it detrimental to the ghost shrimp to put them in the tank while it's cycling?

If you're cycling with ammonia then no shrimp or fish of any kind. You don't have to have the bottled bacteria it just makes things a whole lot faster and easier.