Is it possible for trace soap residue to ruin a nitrogen cycle?

Because I recently bought a betta I decided to try and make use of an old 10 gal I had previously failed with years ago. At the time I didn't know about the nitrogen cycle and sadly the goldfish I had at the time all got sick and died. Because they died of illness when I started up the tank again I decided to wash everything, with soap, because I didn't know how bad that could be. Well i'm honestly pretty sure I removed all the soap by thoroughly rinsing everything but since I haven't been able to get a proper nitrogen cycle going I wanted to know if maybe there could be some soap that's ruining it? I've tried to get a fishless cycle going for over 3 weeks now, the water is properly dechlorinated with aquasafe and the ammonia levels were constant at about 3.0ppm. There was never any increase in nitrite at all so after all that pain I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. I emptied out all the water. Bought new dechlorinator since I thought the old one might have been too old, and I even bought tetra safestart plus. I refilled the tank with fresh treated water and added the tetra safestart, It's been about 4 days now since then and I still notice absolutely no change in the nitrite level. considering at this time i've now added live bacteria and still see no changes i'm really wondering where i've gone wrong. Is it possible there could be traces of soap still in the substrate that is ruining the nitrogen cycle? Does soap even impact the nitrogen cycle? All I saw about it online was that it could be toxic to fish, nothing about cycling. My fish has been patiently waiting in a vase that i've been frequently changing the water in waiting to be introduced to the bigger environment. I feel really bad for him so please help me out to figure out what i'm doing wrong here! Many thanks!

 

I doubt trace soap or detergent is interfering with your tank cycling. Although, the way to clean a tank is with water, then scrubbing with white vinegar, rinsing with water, scrubbing with more vinegar then flushing everything, letting it dry thoroughly and then filling **** substrate and water and letting the tank cycle. But don't worry. Sometimes it just takes a long time to cycle a tank. Why? Sun spots? (I really don't know.) What's important is to have patience and know that eventually your tank water will cycle, bacteria will stabilize and be safe for adding critters. You may try seeding your tank water with the water you change out of the vase containing your fish. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks. So, once you get started be patient. Good luck.

 

What levels of ammonia are you reading (also what test kit) try not to go higher than 1.0 (assuming you are using pure ammonia?) as this can slow the cycling also the temp of the tank can speed things up, aI'm for around 28oC /82f for the cycling. You should start reading nitrites within a couple of weeks then nitrates within a couple of weeks from that, is it possible to get some seeded filter material from a friend with a healthy tank? good luck

 

Previously I had been using just fish food that broke down into ammonia in the tank. Now after adding the new water and tetra safestart my tank has an ammonia level of about .25ppm. I don't currently have a heater for my tank yet because it's the summer and my home is at about 84deg f (according to my thermostat currently) give or take depending on the ac. Sadly none of my friends have taken to fishkeeping but that would certainly be convenient! I'm going to try to be more patient with this and wait and see if the addition of the safestart live bacteria has any effect. It's so hard with things like this because you have to wait nearly a month to find out you're messing up! If I still see no results after a few more weeks I think I'll use the vinegar cleaning method. Thank you very much for your help and if anyone else has any more advice i'd be happy to hear it!

 

With safe start and an ammonia reading I would hope to see some reading of nitrite soon, however you haven't said how ur testing if it's strips u may be at that stage and not know

 

Another question is what filter type are you running and does it have any bio area if not try and get something like the ceramic media and add to the filter, as it will give the bacteria somewhere to grow, what type of fish are you going to be adding out of curiosity?