I need desperate help with my cycling situation

I’m looking for someone with a lot of aquarium experience to help me out with this cycling situation. I’m starting to get desperate. About four months ago I set up a 40 gallon aquarium to house a single axolotl. I spent quite a bit of money because this is something i’m very passionate and excited about, I have a lot of exotic animals but I have never had an aquarium before. I have been attempting to cycle my aquarium for nearly 4 months now, to no avail. Every time I ask for advice I get contradicting information from multiple people. Some are telling me that it is impossible to get my aquarium to process 2ppm ammonia in 24 hours. Some are telling me to go ahead and add the axolotl despite my aquarium only cycling 1ppm ammonia every 24 hours because “axolotls will never produce more than 1ppm ammonia in a 24 hours period”. Others are telling me that I should let my aquarium sit without adding any extra bacteria products. I honestly don’t know what to believe at this point.

It has been to my understanding that a fully cycled axolotl aquarium can process 2ppm ammonia in 24 hours, with a reading of 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrites, and a reading of under 40ppm nitrates. This is what I am currently shooting for.

In total my entire setup cost around $700, mostly because I live in Arizona and I require a ¼ horsepower chiller in order to keep my aquarium in the low 60 degree range. I currently have a Fluval 307 canister filter, a secondary sponge filter rated at 40 gallons, as well as a Baoshishan ¼ horsepower chiller. I have already gone through one 2oz bottle of ammonia, two 1oz bottles of Fritz 700, and one bottle of Fritz but I can’t seem to fully complete my cycle, no matter what I try.

I do not have anything in the tank currently, as I am doing a fishless cycle. On paper I believe I am doing everything right cycling wise. Here is my current cycling strategy:

Dose to 2ppm ammonia daily using Dr. Tim’s ammonia.

Check parameters with API water testing kit

Do a 50% water change when nitrates reach the “red zone”, around 80-120ppm nitrates.

I have already used quite a bit of Fritz 700 bacteria that I purchase from my local aquarium store. It seems to work most of the time, but I still cannot get my aquarium to process anymore than 1ppm ammonia in a 24 hour period. I’ve gone through two 1oz bottles of Fritz and a 4oz bottle (over a period of about a month and a half) that i’m pretty sure didn’t do anything as I ordered through Amazon and the cold packs included in the package were no match for the Arizona summer heat.

I’m planning on adding another 1oz bottle of fritz to see if that will do anything.

Based on what i’m currently doing I don’t understand what i’m doing wrong. The first time I tried to cycle I nearly completed it. My aquarium was processing 1.75ppm of both ammonia and nitrites in a 24 hour period. However I was dumb and once I had an algae bloom I freaked out and added algae fix, which seemed to have stalled the cycle.

My second time cycling I cannot seem to get the aquarium to process more than 1ppm ammonia in a 25 hour period, even when using refrigerated fritz 700.

ANY advice would be much appreciated. I’ve even considered looking into paying someone to cycle my aquarium for me, not sure if that is even a thing.

Thanks so much in advance for any advice.

 

Well cycling isn't one of those things that throwing money at fixes. It certainly helps with resources available to you though. The knowledge of how this works will be much more valuable to you as keeping an aquarium in itself is like taking care of a pet. First, this forum has a resource that will calculate your ammonia. Fishless Ammonia calculator and more. You don't need a specific ammonia. Hardware store ammonia works as well.

There are a few factors important to the bacteria that cycle your tank. Temperature, pH, and Ammonia/food source. You seem to have the food source covered. That doesn't seem to be the problem though. The bacteria you need do well at 65-85F. They also do best in the 7-8 pH range. They can survive past those ranges in temperature and pH BUT at exponentially lower rates. pH closer to 6 or past 8 slows it to a crawl(sometimes halting it). Same goes for temperature. So that may be what you are seeing. 60 degrees is the lower end in that range. So even using fritz, which does not need to be refrigerated, just don't let the contents touch water. A typical cycle takes 3-4 weeks. Fritz CAN accelerate that to a week depending on those factors mentioned above, but a 1oZ bottle for a 40 gallon tank, is that the dosage?
Are you dumping it or dosing it as Ammonia and Nitrites are being processed? In my opinion it would help dose it as nitrites become available. It's two different bacteria strains working in tandem to process it all to Nitrates. If you dump the bottle for the ammonia then the Nitrifying bacteria for Nitrites have nothing to eat for a while until the Ammonia is processed. They die. Not sure if my science is correct but that's just what I would do.

Learn the cycle and what works for it because even if you did pay someone to do this for you, there is something off about one thing or another you are doing that is preventing this. It would be invaluable for you to figure out what that is by reading more on the cycle. It's not too hard once you have a few things down. Good luck!

 

curlyaxolotl
Welcome to fishlore.
I am sorry you are getting conflicting information.
Let me start by saying there is no correct way to cycle a tank . All ways will eventually get the same result.

Trying to help .
Stop changing water. Only if the nitrates get extremely high is it possible to hurt the bacteria. When you have a cycled tank and have livestock then yes change water often.

Stop cleaning or touching any hard surfaces including the glass. When the tank is cycled you can start cleaning the glass ,gravel, ornaments and filters slowly one thing at a time.

Reading your post you have the bacteria. The true bacteria already in the tank. In my opinion adding more bottled bacteria is simply starving the real bacteria of the food they need to grow.

When the tank has a full working nitrogen cycle you will not be adding any bottles of bacteria. Now is the time to stop .Most likely shops and manufacturers would like you to continue using their products. I see sponsored U tube channels using bottled bacteria in their videos. Shame on them . One or two of the big channels are the worst offenders at this shameful promotion marketing. Stop buying Fritz ,when that bottle is finished and give your money to a charity of your choice.

In short.
Before you add livestock you could do a big clean up over a few weeks.? Until it’s cycled leave the tank alone.

Sorry to confuse the situation and slightly contradict what’s written above. There are strains of bacteria that function at lower temperature levels . And lower PH levels. They are just not the ones found in tropical tanks. No need to worry about this .

This is a snapshot of the colour my API test kit shows for zero ammonia.

 

Things you are doing wrong.
1. Continuing to dose ammonia over and over.
2. Continuing to dose the biological booster over and over.
3. Low cycling temp, bacteria have a "sweet spot" temp range.
4. No idea on water parameters but if pH is low or high this will slow or stall bacteria growth also.

I'm "old school" we didn't have these "boosters" or "fishless cycling".
We dosed a dechlorinator, put fish in and tested water (if we had a test kit,, if not just watch the fish for signs of stress) and did water changes all the time to keep ammonia, nitrite and nitrate low and somehow our tanks cycled and nobody died..

Given the sweet spot on temp, and the sweet spot on pH, (temp 78F, pH 7.4-7.6) a bacteria colony can roughly double in size naturally, without a booster every 15 hours if it has resources to grow (ammonia source). There are nitrifying bacterias that function and live at lower temps and out of range pH's, they just don't build up or work as fast as the ones in the ideal range.

Gonna sound crazy but raise temp to 78F, water change, water change, don't mess with filter or substrate, just water change the nitrates down to 10ppm and pH in the 7.4-7.6 range. TDS will go down also.
From there dose your 2ppm ammonia. 1ppm ammonia becomes 3.6 nitrates. Time how long it takes for that 2ppm ammonia to become 7.2 nitrates, going all the way to nitrates.. You'll be near 20ppm nitrates. If it takes over 24 hours, 50% water change back to 10ppm nitrates, and redose 2ppm ammonia and ride it out again
It will upsize to process the 2ppm ammonia but it won't do it if conditions aren't right for bacteria to multiply and it won't do it if there's a backlog of ammonia or Nitrites, or a pile of nitrates. The pile of nitrates is basically also a pile of acids lowering you pH.

You don't need any more biological booster, you already process over at least 1ppm ammonia all the way to nitrates, you just need to "size up" the colony you do have.

You can lower temperatures or mess with pH after it's cycled to 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 ppm ammonia processed all the way to nitrates in 24 hours. Lowering temp or pH before you finish cycling it's just slowing the cycle to a crawl and it will never double every 15 hours at 60F which is ideal speed to cycle.

But if you are sure you process 1ppm in 24 hours, I can't see why you couldn't put the axolotl in there already... fish or axolotl trickle ammonia over 24 hrs. they don't just dump 1 or 2 ppm in a single shot, it's not how it works. I think you have enough cycle going to where its either gonna make it, or there would be a slow rise of ammonia or Nitrites possibly at worst, one that you would notice by testing every 6 hours say on a weekend when you have time to monitor it and worst case water change to keep it low until the colony gets completely up to speed for the daily output of the axolotl. It might be fine, it might require a daily water change to keep it safe until the colony gets up to speed but 1ppm processed should be relatively safe if monitored so that it doesn't stack up and become a problem.

 

SparkyJones a link to a video that although very boring does touch on the subject of how there are many different strains of bacteria that operate at different PH and different temperature levels. In short cycling a tank and building the colonies at one temperature/ PH will multiply only those bacteria that prefer that temperature. When the temperature/PH is changed it takes time for different strains of bacteria to multiply for that new temperature/ PH .

Fast forward to about 4 minutes.


curlyaxolotl this video is not something you really need to study. In short any temperature will grow some bacteria and cycling at a different temperature/PH to what the final tank temperature/PH will not necessarily make much difference in time in the long run . It’s just not really helpful for your tank situation.

Continued.
Just as a stable PH / temperature is best for fish it is also best for bacteria colonies.

 

SparkyJones a link to a video that although very boring does touch on the subject of how there are many different strains of bacteria that operate at different PH and different temperature levels. In short cycling a tank and building the colonies at one temperature/ PH will multiply only those bacteria that prefer that temperature. When the temperature/PH is changed it takes time for different strains of bacteria to multiply for that new temperature/ PH .

Fast forward to about 4 minutes.


curlyaxolotl this video is not something you really need to study. In short any temperature will grow some bacteria and cycling at a different temperature/PH to what the final tank temperature/PH will not necessarily make much difference in time in the long run . It’s just not really helpful for your tank situation.

Continued.
Just as a stable PH / temperature is best for fish it is also best for bacteria colonies.

I am aware of this from my own reading, What I mean is it's easier and faster to grow at that temp and pH to cycle and then adjust slowly to where you want it, and as one strain declines, the other strains that function better take over, there's less of a dead stop involved, or a long cycle, one transitions into the next.

If the Axolotl could take a pH below 6, all ammonia would be ammonium and non-toxic to it anyways. but that's neither here not there, it can't take below pH6, it's just something to note.

But thinking about all this, the situation, the problem, and how to solve it, I've come to a conclusion and changed course, Something I would have never gotten to without begin reminded of that information about different strains of bacteria..... Thank you.

For ponds there's cold water beneficial bacteria booster for 50F and below. the BB he's adding isn't necessarily the right strains for the temperature he's keeping either, but my thought was to get a tank cycled for the load, then start to bring it down in temp and in line for the species, and one strain will function and take over as the other strain declines and phases out, at least the tank wouldn't need to be empty for 4-6 months of cycle, could maybe keep some feeder comets or something in there as it works out over time to the right conditions for the axolotl, but that's still a long time going and not ideal.

In the directions of Fritz700 it says
"ideal parameters"
"Temperature: 77-86 F (25-30 C)
pH: 7.3-8.0; nitrification is completely inhibited below pH 6.0"
Perhaps it works to some extent at 70F, but down at 65-60F? clearly if Fritz700 was working as intended the tank would have been cycled in 5-10 days, a month tops as the product claims, and not still trying to 4 months later.

I'm not bashing anyone here or Fritz, so please no one get offended, but there is more than one way to do anything and shades of grey to doing it, temp and pH ranges for bacteria strains overlap in all cases, but drastic jumps cause a void to where there is no overlap and a cycle crashes,or stalls and one can't take over for another.
Naturally one strain takes over for another as the seasons or conditions change and temps rise or drop, Just saying at 4 months, thats at least 2x longer than even a natural seasonal change to a natural cycle. A natural pond with deeper cold and cooler water areas in larger ponds where all these strains are maintained and just need the conditions to thrive and take over for the ones that decline and it rotates with the seasons.
Outdoor ornamental ponds don't get the natural cycle and require the boosts for the water temp changes they don't have the areas to maintain pockets of different temperature thriving bacteria.

So how do we correct it besides keep adding the fritz and waiting even longer?
Well might have wanted to cycle using Microbelift PL for instance, meant for temps above 50F and outdoor koi and goldfish ponds instead of Fritz700. meant for tropical aquariums.
For ponds there's even cold water beneficial bacteria boosters for 50F and below for winterizing.
Quite common to use those products in fall and spring to prepare small ponds for Summer and winter transitions.

Might want to switch over to this Microbelift PL now, and see if it finishes and gets you to full cycle and 2ppm or more ammonia processed in 24 hours at around 60F which it should by adding bacteria that function well in that temp range as well as warmer water conditions.

 

The use of bottled bacteria is perhaps a difference in each of our countries cultures?
Down in Australia many creatures are eaten on the side of the road by bacteria and nobody is putting bottled bacteria on the dead kangaroos.

To the best of my knowledge Nobody is adding bottled bacteria to any of the river’s and lakes i fish in?

 

The use of bottled bacteria is perhaps a difference in each of our countries cultures?
Down in Australia many creatures are eaten on the side of the road by bacteria and nobody is putting bottled bacteria on the dead kangaroos.

To the best of my knowledge Nobody is adding bottled bacteria to any of the river’s and lakes i fish in?

This is True, however nobody is dumping so much chlorine on the kangaroo or in the water that it kills every living organism in it in either of those examples.

You don't need it, I don't use it, but I won't say that bacteria in a bottle doesn't help to speed things along to a full cycle.

 

Well cycling isn't one of those things that throwing money at fixes. It certainly helps with resources available to you though. The knowledge of how this works will be much more valuable to you as keeping an aquarium in itself is like taking care of a pet. First, this forum has a resource that will calculate your ammonia. Fishless Ammonia calculator and more. You don't need a specific ammonia. Hardware store ammonia works as well.

There are a few factors important to the bacteria that cycle your tank. Temperature, pH, and Ammonia/food source. You seem to have the food source covered. That doesn't seem to be the problem though. The bacteria you need do well at 65-85F. They also do best in the 7-8 pH range. They can survive past those ranges in temperature and pH BUT at exponentially lower rates. pH closer to 6 or past 8 slows it to a crawl(sometimes halting it). Same goes for temperature. So that may be what you are seeing. 60 degrees is the lower end in that range. So even using fritz, which does not need to be refrigerated, just don't let the contents touch water. A typical cycle takes 3-4 weeks. Fritz CAN accelerate that to a week depending on those factors mentioned above, but a 1oZ bottle for a 40 gallon tank, is that the dosage?
Are you dumping it or dosing it as Ammonia and Nitrites are being processed? In my opinion it would help dose it as nitrites become available. It's two different bacteria strains working in tandem to process it all to Nitrates. If you dump the bottle for the ammonia then the Nitrifying bacteria for Nitrites have nothing to eat for a while until the Ammonia is processed. They die. Not sure if my science is correct but that's just what I would do.

Learn the cycle and what works for it because even if you did pay someone to do this for you, there is something off about one thing or another you are doing that is preventing this. It would be invaluable for you to figure out what that is by reading more on the cycle. It's not too hard once you have a few things down. Good luck!

First off, thank you so much for the lengthy reply. Sorry for replying so late.

As of right now I am not currently running my chiller, this was my fault for not clarifying in my original post. As you stated this is because I want my water temperature to be a bit higher, in order for the bacteria to multiply faster. The indoor temperature in my house right now is in the low 70 degree range. Would I be better off running it anyways and keeping the temperature the same throughout the day?

The type of Fritz I am using is called "Fritz turbostart 700". It is sold and packed refrigerated. The first time I used it, I was only adding a small capful a day while I dosed my ammonia, which seemed to have worked, as the first time I cycled I managed to get my parameters down to .25 ammonia, .25 nitrite and less than 40ppm nitrates. I panicked when I got an algae bloom, added algae fix, and the cycle stalled.

As of the time of writing I have stalled my cycle yet again, I got a bit lazy and started dosing ammonia without measuring any parameters. I have two 4oz bottles of refrigerated Fritz Turbo Start 700 ready to go and i'm really hoping this will speed up the process.

curlyaxolotl
Welcome to fishlore.
I am sorry you are getting conflicting information.
Let me start by saying there is no correct way to cycle a tank . All ways will eventually get the same result.

Trying to help .
Stop changing water. Only if the nitrates get extremely high is it possible to hurt the bacteria. When you have a cycled tank and have livestock then yes change water often.

Stop cleaning or touching any hard surfaces including the glass. When the tank is cycled you can start cleaning the glass ,gravel, ornaments and filters slowly one thing at a time.

Reading your post you have the bacteria. The true bacteria already in the tank. In my opinion adding more bottled bacteria is simply starving the real bacteria of the food they need to grow.

When the tank has a full working nitrogen cycle you will not be adding any bottles of bacteria. Now is the time to stop .Most likely shops and manufacturers would like you to continue using their products. I see sponsored U tube channels using bottled bacteria in their videos. Shame on them . One or two of the big channels are the worst offenders at this shameful promotion marketing. Stop buying Fritz ,when that bottle is finished and give your money to a charity of your choice.

In short.
Before you add livestock you could do a big clean up over a few weeks.? Until it’s cycled leave the tank alone.

Sorry to confuse the situation and slightly contradict what’s written above. There are strains of bacteria that function at lower temperature levels . And lower PH levels. They are just not the ones found in tropical tanks. No need to worry about this .

This is a snapshot of the colour my API test kit shows for zero ammonia. View attachment 851078

Got it, I will only do water changes for now on when my nitrates are super high. But how do I know how much nitrates will stall a cycle? My axolotl discord group has stated that high nitrates can stall a cycle. Is there an exact concentration at which this will happen?

If I am processing 1ppm ammonia in a 24 hour period, is that safe enough to add a juvenile axolotl?

Things you are doing wrong.
1. Continuing to dose ammonia over and over.
2. Continuing to dose the biological booster over and over.
3. Low cycling temp, bacteria have a "sweet spot" temp range.
4. No idea on water parameters but if pH is low or high this will slow or stall bacteria growth also.

I'm "old school" we didn't have these "boosters" or "fishless cycling".
We dosed a dechlorinator, put fish in and tested water (if we had a test kit,, if not just watch the fish for signs of stress) and did water changes all the time to keep ammonia, nitrite and nitrate low and somehow our tanks cycled and nobody died..

Given the sweet spot on temp, and the sweet spot on pH, (temp 78F, pH 7.4-7.6) a bacteria colony can roughly double in size naturally, without a booster every 15 hours if it has resources to grow (ammonia source). There are nitrifying bacterias that function and live at lower temps and out of range pH's, they just don't build up or work as fast as the ones in the ideal range.

Gonna sound crazy but raise temp to 78F, water change, water change, don't mess with filter or substrate, just water change the nitrates down to 10ppm and pH in the 7.4-7.6 range. TDS will go down also.
From there dose your 2ppm ammonia. 1ppm ammonia becomes 3.6 nitrates. Time how long it takes for that 2ppm ammonia to become 7.2 nitrates, going all the way to nitrates.. You'll be near 20ppm nitrates. If it takes over 24 hours, 50% water change back to 10ppm nitrates, and redose 2ppm ammonia and ride it out again
It will upsize to process the 2ppm ammonia but it won't do it if conditions aren't right for bacteria to multiply and it won't do it if there's a backlog of ammonia or Nitrites, or a pile of nitrates. The pile of nitrates is basically also a pile of acids lowering you pH.

You don't need any more biological booster, you already process over at least 1ppm ammonia all the way to nitrates, you just need to "size up" the colony you do have.

You can lower temperatures or mess with pH after it's cycled to 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 ppm ammonia processed all the way to nitrates in 24 hours. Lowering temp or pH before you finish cycling it's just slowing the cycle to a crawl and it will never double every 15 hours at 60F which is ideal speed to cycle.

But if you are sure you process 1ppm in 24 hours, I can't see why you couldn't put the axolotl in there already... fish or axolotl trickle ammonia over 24 hrs. they don't just dump 1 or 2 ppm in a single shot, it's not how it works. I think you have enough cycle going to where its either gonna make it, or there would be a slow rise of ammonia or Nitrites possibly at worst, one that you would notice by testing every 6 hours say on a weekend when you have time to monitor it and worst case water change to keep it low until the colony gets completely up to speed for the daily output of the axolotl. It might be fine, it might require a daily water change to keep it safe until the colony gets up to speed but 1ppm processed should be relatively safe if monitored so that it doesn't stack up and become a problem.

1. If I shouldn't be dosing ammonia daily, how often should I dose it? All of the advice I have gotten from my axolotl discord channel has stated that I should dose to 2ppm daily and only add the axolotl when I am at 0ppm ammonia and nitrites.

2. How often should I add my bacteria?

3. I would like to clarify that I am not currently running my chiller, I simply have it set up and ready to go when I add my axolotl. My indoor temperature is in the low to mid 70s.

As of right now I seemed to have stalled my cycle again. My ammonia levels tested very high over the past few days, about 4ppm to be exact. I have done a 62% water change and that brought my ammonia level down to about 1ppm, nitrites down to 0ppm, and nitrates down to below 40ppm.

I was going to turn on my chiller and have it run at about 78 degrees but my water pump seems to be broken so unfortunately I will have to wait until I order a new pump to pump water into my chiller.

The third paragraph of your post is quite confusing to me. What do you mean by TDS? What do you mean by 7.2 nitrites?