Funky results for fishless cycling

[Anubis]

Hi everyone!

I've been trying to cycle my tank for a month and it's still not cycled. Just a few quick facts before I go in to the details: I'm using API drops testing kit for nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia. I"m also dosing my tank with pure ammonia and I'm adding enough ammonia for the testing kit to register the ammonia at about 5 ppm. I have a tank heater running and currently my tank is at 75 F (I can't get it any higher my apartment is always freezing) in addition to an air stone. Finally, I'm dosing the tank every 3 days with 5 mls of Nutrafin Cycle Biological Aquarium Supplement.

When I first started cycling, the ammonia increased to about 6 ppm before the nitrite started to spike. The nitrite increased to about 5 ppm a week after the ammonia was stable at 6 ppm before the nitrate started to appear. The nitrate peaked at about 10 ppm two days after the nitrite spiked. About two weeks later, the ammonia is not 5 ppm, yet there's no nitrite or nitrate. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong and I'd love to move my axolotls in to my 55 gallon tank but I don't want to do that until I'm certain that the tank is completely cycled.

If I've missed any detail, ask and I'll provide it. I'd really appreciate any help you all can offer!

 

[carsona246]

Just for the record the maximum level of ammonia recommended is about 4 ppm's. Higher than this "may" cause your bb to start to die off. I think you're safe though, a good percentage of that ammonia reading is going to be ammonium.
So let me get this straight, you added 6 ppm's of ammonia, it dropped and you got 10 ppm's of nitrate. Now the ammonia has dropped even lower, but there is no increase in nitrite, or nitrate?
What is the ammonia level now, are their live plants, and are you using anything like ammo chips to absorb ammonia?

 

[Anubis]

Hey! Sorry this took a while . The ammonia initially dropped at the beginning of this process. I would add pure ammonia (up to about 5ppm) and then wait until the ammonia started to drop below 2-3 ppm. At that point I would add more ammonia until it increased to 5ppm again. About a week after I started doing this the nitrite started to increase. It jumped up to about 5ppm about 4 days after I saw the nitrite increase. About a day after nitrite increased to 8 ppm the nitrate increased to about 5 ppm. The nitrite and nitrate would steadily decrease over the next two days to about 2ppm and 0 ppm respectively while the ammonia would take a little while (a two or three days) to drop below 2 ppm. I'd keep adding ammonia to keep it at about 5 ppm, but now the nitrite and nitrate are at 0 ppm while the ammonia is stuck at 5 ppm ( I just checked it).

The only thing I'm adding is a dechlorinator, which according to the bottle doesn't neutralize ammonia. Also whenever I do a partial water change I add about 5 ml of that beneficial bacteria I mentioned.

 

[HappySkittles]

Stop adding and dosing everything you are. If you don't have any animals in your tank, just drop in some fish food, pellets, or even a piece of raw shrimp into the tank. And just let it do it's thing! All those chemicals never seem to work as well as some natural decaying food/animal stuff i cycled a tank in one week with dead stuff.

 

[carsona246]

do you have plants in the tank? The nitrate should not be dropping on it's own. That's what has me confused. Here's a potential idea, are you shaking up the testing bottles well before dripping the liquid in the test tubes? If you're not you could be getting a false 0 reading, I know I've had that happen to me a few times.

 

[aeviette]

Follow Lizzy's advice, just put some fish food or something in there and wait for the magic to happen. I cycled mine pretty quickly that way, and it's cheap.

 

[carsona246]

I don't think there's anything wrong with using pure ammonia to cycle a tank, it takes the guess work out of figuring out how much to add to a tank. A few drops, and you get the ppm of ammonia you want in the tank, so you can instantly know how much you're adding, instead of dropping a shrimp in the tank and waiting to see how much ammonia you have. For instance I cycled a 150 gallon tank, and couldn't find any non-cleaner ammonia, so I used a frozen shrimp. i threw 4 in the tank, but it took 3 days to actually get an ammonia reading, so I was unsure what was going on until I got the ammonia reading.
With pure ammonia, I could have instantly known how much to add

 

[blackdog]

Where does one buy pure ammonia as opposed to cleaner ammonia?

 

[sheena22]

Im a little confused as well as carlson how you are getting those readings and as well as him i would suggest doing it again or maybe getting a new one. sometimes if you dont rinse the test tube out properly it all mixes and gives a higher reading so you could try again and rinse really well and if it still gives you that reading maybe try a new test kit ?

I havent had the trouble with just using bacteria with rises in ammonia and nitrite so maybe that particular bacteria could be causing the problem or you are dosing to much so the bacteria is dying off causing the rises?

 

[carsona246]

I'm not sure where you would find it in Australia, but Ace hardware has it here, and I've found it a few times at some other home improvement stores, like home-depot. I haven't actually used any in a long time, but the last time I got some was from a dollar store.

 

[HappySkittles]

I tend to give it a few days anyway before I check ammonia or anything with the shrimp but using fish food is faster. The actual shrimp flesh tends to take a while to rot where as fish food gets mushy fast :O

Just out of curiosity...where do you find ammonia carson? I have never seen it for sale. (ok i see now! all post at once!)

 

[sheena22]

Strange thought really never thought of using the ammonia pure, good idea though brilliant really if you can get it right . Ive never seen it for sale either

 

[carsona246]

The actual shrimp flesh tends to take a while to rot where as fish food gets mushy fast :O

no joke, I thought the tank was cycled for a few days(I did throw a little used bio media in the filter) before I actually got the ammonia reading.

 

[Anubis]

Stop adding and dosing everything you are. If you don't have any animals in your tank, just drop in some fish food, pellets, or even a piece of raw shrimp into the tank. And just let it do it's thing! All those chemicals never seem to work as well as some natural decaying food/animal stuff i cycled a tank in one week with dead stuff.

Hi! I tried adding fish food to the water a year ago to cycle my tank but that never worked. I might have done it wrong . I added half a pellet of blood worms to the tank every other week. I don't remember what happened other than my tank never cycled fully, so I did a complete water change and started pouring in used water. How I've been taking care of my axie is by leaving them in a 2 gallon Tupperware container that I change every other day to keep the ammonia down. So whenever I changed their water I would add it to the 55 gallon tank instead of pouring it down the sink. I still didn't get desired results; I got a brief spike in ammonia before the cycling process stopped (no increase in nitrite or nitrate with a subsequent drop in ammonia). How am I suppose to cycle with fish food?

 

[Anubis]

do you have plants in the tank? The nitrate should not be dropping on it's own. That's what has me confused. Here's a potential idea, are you shaking up the testing bottles well before dripping the liquid in the test tubes? If you're not you could be getting a false 0 reading, I know I've had that happen to me a few times.

I added plants a few days ago (Friday the 21st). This was about a week or so after I saw no change (either increase or decrease in ammonia with no nitrite or nitrate). I know, it has me confused too . I think I'm shaking the testing bottles well? I'm shaking vigorously and counting to three. Is that enough? Is it possible that the bottles could be old? This is a kit that I've had for a year (I've tried to cycle the tank before, but it never worked and I've started over from scratch a few times. This is the 3rd time I've tried fishless cycling and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong ).

 

[Anubis]

Follow Lizzy's advice, just put some fish food or something in there and wait for the magic to happen. I cycled mine pretty quickly that way, and it's cheap.

Really? Could you explain to me what you did? I've tried it before but failed miserably . I'd really like to get my little guy in there fast because they're soon going to be too big for their container.

 

[Anubis]

Where does one buy pure ammonia as opposed to cleaner ammonia?

I got mine at ACE Hardware. It was a little tough to find ammonia without surfactant and aromas, but they carry large bottles of pure ammonia you could use.

 

[HappySkittles]

Find the muckiest food you've got and toss in a good bit. I either use half a jumbo shrimp (bigger tanks I use the whole thing) or a palm full of pellets.

 

[carsona246]

I would say wait for the ammonia level in your tank to decrease, it is still at 5 ppm's right? It's a little strange that your nitrite and nitrate lowered without any waterchanges. Just wait it out, and the ammonia should lower down eventually, and see where the readings go from there.

 

[Anubis]

I would say wait for the ammonia level in your tank to decrease, it is still at 5 ppm's right? It's a little strange that your nitrite and nitrate lowered without any waterchanges. Just wait it out, and the ammonia should lower down eventually, and see where the readings go from there.

Thanks Lizzy and Carson! I'll wait a bit longer then, but what if a week goes by and there's no drop? Should I start over with the food version of fish less cycling?