My Cycle Frustrations

So, got a 10 gallon hand-me-down from family and promptly killed a few fish and then found this site... never knew about nitrogen cycle. Got some stability and prime and worked through it. Fast forward to Christmas and decide to get myself a nice 54g corner tank and now I'm a Google Genius, or so I thought.

Added proper stability on day 1, but somehow my brain reset and I started adding 10 gallon amounts next 4 days. Ug, double up the next few days... Made sure I had good PH, KH, temp, etc. 9 days later, nothing!
Stole a few bio rings from 10 gallon risking a minicycle and 12 hours later, I'm getting both some nitrites/nitrates.
Day 11 or so, I added MopanI wood and there are tannins, so I added Purigen. Cycle completely stops a day or so later. Nitrites:10-20, Nitrates: 40-50. Removed Purigen around day 16, but nothing changes. A lot of conflicting info on high nitrites also stalling, so I did a 80% WC at day 20.
So here I am, stability, borrowed media, still not cycled at 21 days. UG!

 

Did you happen to write down your water parameters over the last 3 weeks? Or do you know if you ever had an ammonia reading or a reading on ammonia now? If so posting those numbers could be helpful.

 

Yeah, I tracked. I started with 6+ppm, and added 2ppm when ever it processed. I skipped a day a couple times to try to keep nitrites "lower". I did a 50% wc around day 12 also. I'm hoping 80% fresh water after removing purigen will kick start the cycle again.

 

I have zero experience with using purigen and what effects it might have so I can’t offer sound advice. Hopefully some other members can guide you through this.

What’s your current water parameters?

 

Seachem states it can 'slow' your cycle. Between that and my high nitrites it stopped completely. Oddly, my ammonia still processes fine. I haven't rechecked this morning since the water change, but I was at about 0/10-20/50-60

 

Seems to me you are very close to being cycled. The nitrobacter (nitrite to nitrate bacteria) just need to catch up.

 

I hope so, but since it looked like it completely stopped processing nitrites for 5 days or more I was stumped. Hope they didn't die somehow.

 

Oh no. My tap has .5 ammonia, and now, just at 12 hr later tank is at .25. thought it was processing faster than that. I hope I didn't starve them too much.
Nitrite/nitrate diluted readings at 3-1. Looks like 1.5ppm nitrite and 15ppm nitrate. I'll recheck in the morning. I should probably add more ammonia too.
I added some plants and they lost some leaves that were decaying. Would that put out much ammonia? I cleaned them out mostly with WC.
I may be color blind or something.. am I reading that nitrite correctly or is it off the charts still?

 

Yea the dead stuff will add ammonia but hard to say how much. I’d wait to do anything until you check parameters tomorrow.

 

I think you are very close, good luck!

 

I think the nitrites were around .75ppm
Judging by the picture anyway. You're definitely getting somewhere, at least you're getting readings across the board so you know the bb is doing it's thing

 

Lessons learned. When doing a fishless cycle don’t add anything but your chlorine remover. Wait 24 hours and then add your Bottle of bacteria. If you have some gravel and filter media from old tank, add that too. It will speed up the process. After that, just add ammonia to get it back to 2ppm. Don’t add anything else and don’t do water changes unless nitrates get very high. Just let it do it’s thing. Sounds like your getting there but adding any additional stuff and water changes can really mess you up.

 

Added 2ppm ammonia 21 hrs ago, looks like it processed 1ppm of it. Nitrates looks up maybe a little. Hopefully back on track.

 

Great! Wait until it drops to 0 and then add enough to bring back up to 2ppm again. Getting close!

 

Looks like my tank is processing 1.5ppm of ammonia every 12 hours now. Nitrite seems to be maybe just a bit faster than that, since I think it's slightly lower than before my 2ppm dose. Assuming I'm reading this correctly, I'm probably close to being done. 26 days in... I really was expecting this to be quicker!
I added plants part way through, and they are dropping some leaves and one thin grass is dying strand by stand so that's probably adding ammonia as well.
One odd thing, my tanks been pretty much cloudy the entire time. From reading other posters, it seems like it shouldn't be the whole time. Hopefully, once I hit zeros, it will clear up.

 

Sounds like making progress!

 

The cloudiness could be algae bloom, I could be wrong.

 

Cycle finished, but water is still cloudy. Hope a final water change clears it up. Ordered clarity just in case.

 

May have found the source. There is a large section of soft looking white fuzz growing on my mopanI driftwood. Is that mold? I boiled the **** out of that thing.. I can't anything would have lived.
Ideas? Take it out and clean it by hand and put it back in? No fish yet. Mild bleach bath?

Edit: sounds like fungus. White film on driftwood?