My Cycle Seems To Be Taking Longer Than It Should

I’ve been cycling my tank for about 2.5-3 weeks now and my tank still tests as having 0.50 ppm ammonia and no nitrites on my API freshwater test kit. I know it takes a long time, but from what I’ve seen people say that ammonia should start to turn into nitrites at around 11 days. If it makes any difference, the way I started cycling was a few weeks ago I used some pure ammonia which brought the ammonia up to 2-4 ppm. Could I be doing something wrong to keep the cycling from advancing? I have three plants in the tank one of which has leaves which are seemingly decaying could that make a difference? I am also using flourish excel in the tank about every second or third day. Does anyone know what is keeping the cycling from continuing? Should I put in more ammonia and try to start it again? Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

 

How big is the tank?

 

Also I only added ammonia the one time as I was attempting to do the “add and wait” method. And I tried using some topfin beneficial bacteria when I started the tank, I know everyone says nothing but tetra safe start works but for some reason they don’t carry that at petsmart (and I was too impatient to wait for ordering it from amazon) so I thought I’d buy their bacteria supplement In the unlikely chance that it’d work since I didn’t think there would be any harm in it lol.

 

How big is the tank?

It’s a 20 gallon tall

 

It’s a 20 gallon tall

Relatively small water volumes take a bit. Just monitor. As far as the BB start some work some don't but I'm not one that says a certain brand is the go to. I deal with chemistry for a living and there's no magic in that bottle of safe start that's not in others lol.

 

I had my 5-gallon tank take around 1-2 months (I can't remember) to cycle, so don't worry, just hang in there

 

All tanks are different, did you or were you able to "borrow" any thing from an established tank that might have helped kick start the BB? I had one tank that took almost 2 months to cycle and another one that took about 3 weeks. Good Luck

 

All tanks are different, did you or were you able to "borrow" any thing from an established tank that might have helped kick start the BB? I had one tank that took almost 2 months to cycle and another one that took about 3 weeks. Good Luck

No, sadly I don’t know anyone who has a tank other than my friend who has a betta in like a 1 gallon bowl lol :/

 

I've always been slightly curious about the effects of Excel when cycling. The active ingredient is glutaraldehyde (and according to some, a variant thereof). Outside of the aquarium world, it's mostly used as a commercial disinfectant in concentrated solutions (in Australia, they're bought by the barrel by chicken farmers).

In effect, it's a biocide, and part of how Excel improves plant growth is by killing accumulated microorganisms on plant surfaces that otherwise inhibits nutrient/CO2 exchange with water. See this post by Tom Barr for more comprehensive information.

It's a stretch to say that Excel is inhibiting your cycle as many people dose Excel and their cycles don't abruptly crash once established. But I wonder whether your cycling would improve if you were to experiment by temporarily stopping Excel.

Also I only added the one time as I was attempting to do the “add and wait” method.

I would top it off back to 2 ppm. Can you provide information about your pH, GH and KH? Are you using RO water?

 

No, sadly I don’t know anyone who has a tank other than my friend who has a betta in like a 1 gallon bowl lol :/

I cycled with fish...my kids won some goldfish at the fair and that's how I got started on my journey to fishdom. I now have 3 tanks, one for the goldfish, one big one as a community tank, and a small one (the old goldfish tank) for a quarantine tank. I was lucky that my sister had some rocks in her goldfish tank that I used for mine to start the process after a 700 mile road trip from PA to TN. All is good

 

I wish we had all this info and support when I was a very, very young and won fish at the fair.

 

I wish we had all this info and support when I was a very, very young and won fish at the fair.

trust me, it wasn't easy...ammonia about burnt one to death, but we managed to save her

 

trust me, it wasn't easy...ammonia about burnt one to death, but we managed to save her

Oh wow, geez x.x Good save, though. Yeah, I don't know, mine may have been done in with an accident during feeding (too much). There were three, I believe, I've always made myself feel better by assuring myself they were carnival fish...now that I'm stepping my toe into the hobby...I'm not so sure. I do remember it being very upsetting for my sensitive little heart at the time (you know, before it became cold and shriveled, lol), and they didn't drop all off at once, but fairly close together.

 

Oh wow, geez x.x Good save, though. Yeah, I don't know, mine may have been done in with an accident during feeding (too much). There were three, I believe, I've always made myself feel better by assuring myself they were carnival fish...now that I'm stepping my toe into the hobby...I'm not so sure. I do remember it being very upsetting for my sensitive little heart at the time (you know, before it became cold and shriveled, lol), and they didn't drop all off at once, but fairly close together.

haha, my daughters would NOT let these fish die!!! they have already grown twice their size and are doing well, named JI'm and Pam

 

haha, my daughters would NOT let these fish die!!! they have already grown twice their size and are doing well, named JI'm and Pam

Lol, that's good. I had to have been like...5-6 or younger, MAYBE 7 but I doubt it. There names were something unoriginal and descriptive, I think, something like freckles or speckles was one XD;

My current fish, Archer, is spoiled (not that those fish wouldn't have been, we're notorious animal spoilers and as a result our animals usually live very long, happy, and healthy lives *knock on wood*.