Safe to dose stability twice a day until the tank completely cycles?

Hello everyone, last week I lost my cycle in my 10 gallon tank which has 1 betta and 3 mollies, yesterday I got Seachem stability to cycle my tank again. My ammonia was nearly up to 8ppm but I was using prime to detoxify ammonia. Luckily none of my fish showed any signs of stress or gill burns but yesterday I started using stability and I could see an improvement right away since my ammonia went down from almost 8ppm to 2ppm I haven’t seen any nitrites yet but my question is, is it safe to dose stability twice a day until the tank completely cycles? Or how often and how much should I dose?

 

Yes its ok to dose stability whenever. I would get that ammonia back down to under 1ppm though. When is the last time you changed water and how much?

 

Sorry, I can’t answer your Stability question, but do you know that Prime is only effective up to a combined level of ammonia and nitrites of 1 ppm?

You’ll need to do frequent water changes to keep the levels below that.

 

I did it yesterday. 50% water change before I started using stability. I was doing water changes everyday before using stability and the ammonia never went down from 8ppm until yesterday that I used stability so I’m very impressed with the product and hopefully my tank will be back to normal soon.

 

I would just follow the directions on the stability bottle and continue for an extra week if you need to. With that much ammonia there should be plenty of
Food for the BB.

 

Thank you all guys

 

Make sure you are not over feeding. That can cause the spike. Actually I wouldn’t feed for two days. Keep up with a big water change and add a bunch of stability and see what happens.

 

Looking at your original post, my first thought was what is causing the problem? How did you lose your cycle so completely? What is the cause of the ammonia reading at 8 ppm? In my opinion you should identify the causes and work on those first.

Whether or not bottled bacteria works is not the real issue in my opinion.. It won't matter whether the Stability or frequent water changes work unless you solve the problem of what's causing big ammonia spikes even with water changes every day.

 

from their website:

Shake well before use. Turn off UV/ozone. Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 40 L (10 US gallons) on the first day with a new aquarium. Then use 1 capful for each 80 L (20 US gallons) daily for 7 days. Fish and other aquatic species may be introduced at any time as long as dosage is maintained for 7 days. For optimum biofilter performance use 1 capful for each 80 L (20 US gallons) once a month or with each water change and whenever introducing new fish or whenever medicating an aquarium. Product shelf life is 4 years from date of manufacture.

Stability® should ideally be used in conjunction with biological filtration such as Seachem Matrix™. For emergency ammonia control, use Seachem AmGuard™.

 

Looking at your original post, my first thought was what is causing the problem? How did you lose your cycle so completely? What is the cause of the ammonia reading at 8 ppm? In my opinion you should identify the causes and work on those first.

Whether or not bottled bacteria works is not the real issue in my opinion.. It won't matter whether the Stability or frequent water changes work unless you solve the problem of what's causing big ammonia spikes even with water changes every day.

I lost my cycle when I rinsed my sponges, however another problem that I’m currently having is that my tap water is showing some ammonia

 

How much ammonia is it showing?

 

How much ammonia is it showing?

About .50 ppm

 

Well that could be a problem. You may have to look into a water filtration system of some sort.

 

About .50 ppm

With ammonia at 8 ppm that means you have 7.5 ppm unaccounted for. I still believe that should be your biggest concern. A reading of .5 from the tap is an issue, but that's not the source of your problem.

 

I agr

With ammonia at 8 ppm that means you have 7.5 ppm unaccounted for. I still believe that should be your biggest concern. A reading of .5 from the tap is an issue, but that's not the source of your problem.

i agree with you because this afternoon I did a 50% water change and I just test the water and it’s showing me 4ppm I’m not really sure what could be causing the problem. My filter sponges look ok just a little browned and I have fluval ceramic rings so I don’t know what’s going on now