justintree3
- #1
Hello,
I have a 55 gallon corner tank which doesn't appear to be cycling. Back in July, we grabbed some filter media from a well established tank from a local aquarium Facebook group, and my understanding was that to keep the bacteria in the filter media alive, we would need to add fish so that it would have a constant supply of ammonia, so we added some fish at the same time (5 zebra danios, 3 guppies, 3 platys, 6 khulI loaches).
I have been keeping an eye on the water parameters, and they basically haven't changed at all since then...ammonia stays around 1 ppm, nitrates and nitrites are a firm 0, pH stays around 8. I do weekly 25% water changes, my tap water has 0 ammonia/nitrates/nitrites, and a pH of about 7.5. Correct me if I'm wrong, but should I not have a nice little colony of bacteria producing nitrites/nitrates by now?
Curiously, I have a 10 gallon tank that was set up around the same time, and through a series of events that I now know to be total n00b mistakes, it started its cycle at the same time as my 55 gallon...and it does have nitrates showing up on the test. There is just a lone pleco in that tank (it's a long story...don't ask).
I do occasionally trade some filter media between the tanks to try and kick-start a bacteria colony in the large tank, but it doesn't seem to be working.
What am I doing wrong?
I have a 55 gallon corner tank which doesn't appear to be cycling. Back in July, we grabbed some filter media from a well established tank from a local aquarium Facebook group, and my understanding was that to keep the bacteria in the filter media alive, we would need to add fish so that it would have a constant supply of ammonia, so we added some fish at the same time (5 zebra danios, 3 guppies, 3 platys, 6 khulI loaches).
I have been keeping an eye on the water parameters, and they basically haven't changed at all since then...ammonia stays around 1 ppm, nitrates and nitrites are a firm 0, pH stays around 8. I do weekly 25% water changes, my tap water has 0 ammonia/nitrates/nitrites, and a pH of about 7.5. Correct me if I'm wrong, but should I not have a nice little colony of bacteria producing nitrites/nitrates by now?
Curiously, I have a 10 gallon tank that was set up around the same time, and through a series of events that I now know to be total n00b mistakes, it started its cycle at the same time as my 55 gallon...and it does have nitrates showing up on the test. There is just a lone pleco in that tank (it's a long story...don't ask).
I do occasionally trade some filter media between the tanks to try and kick-start a bacteria colony in the large tank, but it doesn't seem to be working.
What am I doing wrong?