Cycling Nightmare

J

JLCoolJ

New member
Joined
Oct 19, 2012
Messages
66
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Leicester
Country
United Kingdom
Hey guys,

I've posted about my cycling problem before and it hasn't gotten any better. I've had my axies for 2 and a half months and have been doing a 20% water change every day using a siphon but the ammonia still won't disappear! I don't know what to do : (
I'm using an API ammonia test kit and have tested my tap water which reads 0 for ammonia but when I test my tank water, it varies daily between 0.25 and 1.0 and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've got a filter going and plenty of beach pebbles and fake plants for bacteria surface area. Helpp!
I've attached a pic of my tank. It now has 2 more plastic plants in the center.

Jen xoxo
 

Attachments

  • SAM_1412.jpg
    SAM_1412.jpg
    72.4 KB · Views: 199
If you are still getting ammonia it may be because you are overfeeding or not removing the waste from between the pebbles, overloading your bacterias ability to deal with the it. What do you feed, how much and do to syphon the detritus from between the pebbles? A filter would speed up the process.
 
I cant advise on cycling as I haven't done one yet... but try doing lager water changes and make sure you get the waste out of the tank as some poop could be hiding under the stones also do u have fake or live plants as live plants help cycle a tank (as long as they are taken from an established tank) also when you clean your filter media what do you use? as rinsing the media in tap water kills the good bacteria so its best to wash it gently in the water that your taking from your tank (when you do the water changes)
(I also posted this on your other thread)
 
xxianxx said:
If you are still getting ammonia it may be because you are overfeeding or not removing the waste from between the pebbles, overloading your bacterias ability to deal with the it. What do you feed, how much and do to syphon the detritus from between the pebbles? A filter would speed up the process.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply! For the first month or so that I had them I fed them half a cube of frozen bloodworm each twice a week but then I was advised to feed them more while they're still growing so now I feed them every other day and give them either 1 cube of frozen bloodworm each or half a worm each. I do siphon between the pebbles as best as I can daily and I have a filter in the tank xxx
 
Pebbles will make keeping the tank clean an awful problem :( if you can't guarantee you've cleaned every nook then I'd get rid of them.

Either sand or bare bottom is much easier to establish. Sand will hold the good bacteria & is easy to clean with a gravel vac or turkey baster for quick poop removal.

Low levels of ammonia are not welcome at all & it's not something you want to leave at low levels for long!



<3 >o_o< <3
 
Nemesea said:
I cant advise on cycling as I haven't done one yet... but try doing lager water changes ............)
Click to expand...


Ooooh can I do a lager water change too? Not my axie though, its all for me. ;)




Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Nemesea brought up my filter in a different thread and highlighted that maybe I should clean it out. I was initially told not to touch it because it would destroy the bacteria but when I went to have a look at it, the sponge was filthy so I washed it out using tank water and popped it back in. I'm hoping that maybe I'll see a difference in the reading now. It has been over 2 months. If the ammonia readings haven't changed in 2 days, I'll take the beach pebbles out completely. I'm about to start cycling their newer bigger tank before they move in this time! x
 
JLCoolJ said:
Nemesea brought up my filter in a different thread and highlighted that maybe I should clean it out. I was initially told not to touch it because it would destroy the bacteria but when I went to have a look at it, the sponge was filthy so I washed it out using tank water and popped it back in. I'm hoping that maybe I'll see a difference in the reading now. It has been over 2 months. If the ammonia readings haven't changed in 2 days, I'll take the beach pebbles out completely. I'm about to start cycling their newer bigger tank before they move in this time! x
Click to expand...

The problem isn't your filter. Heck I VERY rarely touch my filters at all. They're nasty in there.

I would put a million dollars on your problem being the bloodworms. They're messy, expensive, and not worth the hassle. If your axolotl is big enough to eat earthworms, switch completely to that. I bet your ammonia problem will go away.

messing with your filter and your pebbles isn't going to help get rid of the problem. The pebbles hide waste, instead of getting rid of them, get rid of what causes all the waste.
 
Anyway I went the rose wine route instead. :thumbup:

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
What kind of filter do you have? Maybe it is not good enough to handle the bioload.
 
What kind of dechlorinator are you using?
 
You are right to be concerned. Every little piece of uncollected poop or uneaten food is a source of harmful ammonia. Your system is new and you have ammonia readings all the time. You need to grow enough bacteria to deal with the waste. In the meantime you are unable to control the amount of waste because you have large pebbles on the base of your tank. Its simple really. You must bring the amount of waste in the tank down to what the current bacteria in the filter can cope with. So it is a very good and positive action that you are doing today to remove the stones. You will also need to do a couple of water changes today to get all visible waste out and to dilute the suspended and dissolved waste. You will find that messing with your tank will bring your ammonia levels up as you stir up the solid waste at the bottom. Just keep doing the water changes. Even if you have to do 3 or 4 at 50% over the next day or two. At this point I would not rely on the bacteria in the filter to clear the ammonia (it will produce nitrite and you also need to give your nitrite munchers time to grow as nitrite is also toxic). I would be testing twice daily for ammonia and nitrite over the next week and doing 50% water changes if either show positive. Water changes would include removing all visible waste. There will still be enough for your bacteria. The key is to keep the waste levels right down at the beginning so that you do not get ammonia or nitrite spikes. You can be a bit more relaxed as the weeks pass and the bacterial colonies grow and gradually take over the waste processing.

PS I should be cleaning my house today but I'm also messing with my tanks instead!


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Thank you so much for your advice! I will do just that today and leave the pebbles out and avoid feeding them bloodworms altogether. My filter came with the tank and is a Juwel BioFlow Mini and as for dechlorinator, I use Aqua One water conditioner. I switched to Prime but then was told that that was a bad idea as it isn't ideal during cycling so I switched back to Aqua One again. Does anyone know what the right advice is re: my filter. With conflicting advice I don't quite understand whether to be rinsing it out in the tank water or to leave it be. I did another API ammonia test this morning and it's still at 0.5 : ( x
 
I always advise not to mess with filters. In your case, your bb colonies are so new and small that I would be afraid any disturbance will just slow your cycle. Work on not over feeding and cleaning up any waste you can see. ammonia has nothing to do with any gunk in your filter. I only swish clean them when they start to really slow down the flow.
 
I already cleaned the filter sponge out before I read these messages, but I only rinsed it gently with some tank water. The flow has definitely improved after doing so, the filter was full of stringy bits of god knows what!
So my day has consisted of taking the axies out of their tank and popping them each in a seperate bucket full of 11L of their tank water without any floating debris in and leaving them in the coldest room of the house covered by towels and then I took all of the beach pebbles out of the tank and the ornaments and plants and filter and completely emptied the tank of water. I filled it with 30L or so of fresh ammonia free water and have put in the right amount of dechlorinator. Readings are all perfect! Just letting the water in there stand for 10hours or so to reach room temperature and then I'll put them back in along with their old tank water! I've moved the whole tank into a dark corner of my room next to the window :happy: I hope that was the right thing to do! I'm feeling a lot happier now anyway!

I've actually bought them a new 3ft tank and set that up today as well where their old tank used to be. It's full of water and the filter is running. I'm hoping to now try and cycle that before I pop the axies into it! So exciting! x
 
Your cycle will carry from one tank to the other because you aren't adding any ammonia, the bb don't have to work any harder. You can just move it all over to the other tank if you want.
 
Thanks for your quick reply, Jess but I'm not sure I know what you mean.
I have 2 tanks in my room at the minute, one is the brand new one that I've put the water in today about an hour ago. It has a new filter to cope with the larger volume of water. I've moved about 7 beach pebbles in there over from my other tank and I was hoping that that might help speed up the cycling process.
The original tank which still isn't cycled yet, is the one that I have cleaned out today. I have replaced about 60% of the water in there and there is no poop or leftover food at all in there now. The other 40% of the water is in the buckets which have my axies in at the moment.

Are you saying that I should move my axies straight into the 3ft tank with the new filter in?
Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I'm trying to get it straight in my own head rather than just waffling at you. I'm not quite comfortable that I've got the cycling thing perfect in my head yet even though I've read about a gazillion articles!
xoxo
 
Beneficial bacteria don't live in the water. They live on surfaces. So transferring water won't really do you much good, other than providing a little bit of ammonia (which will come from the axies themselves anyway).

If you want to speed up the cycle in the new tank, take a big handful of your old substrate and put it in a stocking and hang it near your filter intake.
 
What I meant was transfer everything from your old tank to your new tank including substrate, filter, and Axolotls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    There are no messages in the chat. Be the first one to say Hi!
    Back
    Top