Desperately Need Help with Cycling New 40G Tank

I am trying to cycle a new 40 gallon aquarium via the fishless method.

I setup my new tank seven weeks ago (on 10/14/07). I added gravel, a large Pagoda rock, a large piece of petrified wood, a piece of driftwood, and a fake hollow log (bought at PetsMart). I then added water, an Aquaclear 70 filter, and a 200W heater.

At first, I set the heater to ~ 78 degrees, but then a week or so later set it to ~ 87 degrees (since I heard higher temps can lead to faster bacterial growth and shorten the cycle time).

I added a few drops of pure ammonia (janitorial ammonia from Ace Hardware) every day and after about 3 weeks was able to get ammonia to drop to 0. So the first part of the cycle seemed to work. In other words, the ammonia-eating bacteria seemed to be present. I have continued to add a few drops of ammonia per day for the past 4 or 5 weeks, but nitrites don't seem to be dropping at all.

It's been over 7 weeks now and I'm tired of waiting. Yesterday morning, I removed all of the water (down to the gravel) and did almost a 100% water change. I rinsed the filter media (foam and charcoal) and added the proper amount of Prime water conditioner. I dropped the temperature to 78 degrees in anticipation of getting fish today.

Well, this morning I go to check the water parameters (with the API freshwater test kit) and I mystified.

Ammonia - 0.5
Nitrites - 1
Nitrates - 10

How can these levels be so high in such a short time?

There is nothing in the tank (except for the gravel, rocks, and driftwood). How can ammonia be so high? The addition of Prime water conditioner should have removed all of the ammonia. And how can the nitrites and nitrates be so high after only one day?

I decided to test my tap water and here are the results:

Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0

Like I said before, the ammonia should have been removed by the Prime water conditioner. What gives?

Please advise...

Thanks for all of the help.

msjinkzd said:

the ammonia isn't removed by prime, but it does get detoxified and may still give you an initial reading.

Click to expand...

If the detoxified ammonia still gives a reading, then how can you tell if the ammonia level is fine?

msjinkzd said:

Did you rinse the filter media in old tank water or tap water?

Click to expand...

Cold tap water.

msjinkzd said:

Do you know what the ph and hardness of your tap water is? when you test tap ph, let it sit out for 24 hours before testing.

Click to expand...

I will set out some tap water and test for pH tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

rbishop said:

What kind of testing are you doing? If using dip test strips, they are highly inaccurate as compared to a liquid test kit. I recommend the AP Master test kit if you need one.

Click to expand...

As stated in the original post, I use the API freshwater master test kit.

rbishop said:

I am concerned about the ammonia. A lot of ammonia available out there that have "janitorial" on them, have additives like disenfectants and surficants that you do not want and will kill your fish.

Click to expand...

This is supposed to be pure ammonia. No additives. Many threads on this board recommended that brand of ammonia and that is why I am using it. Here is one of those threads:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113295&highlight=ace+hardware+ammonia

rbishop said:

When dosing ammonia, initially, what level did you keep it at...5 ppm?

After the ammonia drop, did you maintain it in the 3 ppm range?

Click to expand...

There are a few different websites that discuss the fishless cycle. Each of them has a slightly different variation on how much ammonia to add to the tank.

At first I started with 12 drops per day (split up into two feedings). But that seemed too high, so I started to reduce the amount that I added. Over time I reduced it to 3 drops per day.

Besides that, it is hard to measure ammonia at higher levels with the API test kit because the colors are so similar at the higher levels.

hope4peace said:

You cannot rinse your filter media in tap water, it kills your bacteria. When you do water changes, clean your filter media in the water you took out.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn't know that. I'll remember that next time.

But even though I might have killed the bacteria in the filter foam, shouldn't there still should be plenty of bacteria on the BioMax, gravel, Pagoda rock, petrified wood, and driftwood?

silentskream said:

this is what happened when you refilled your tank.
your water had 1ppm of ammonia out of the tap, then you treated with prime so you had 1ppm of ammonium. then your bacteria ate some of that ammonium and turned it into nitrite.

Click to expand...

Well, according to your scenario, then there must be some nitrite-eating bacteria in there as well, since nitrates also showed up. So maybe I'm not too far away from getting the tank fully cycled?!?

Or is it possible that the water that remained in the tank (the few inches of water that was under the gravel) had high levels of nitrites and nitrates, and now this is showing up. In other words, even though I did a 95% water change, the last 5% contained high levels of nitrites and nitrates and thus "poisoned" the new, clean water. If this was true, wouldn't another water change help? Or am I being too optimistic?

silentskream said:

unfortunately, this means that your water is not safe for fish.. and you'll have to continue to do a fishless cycle.

Click to expand...

I was afraid that someone might say that. My kids are going to be very disappointed if this is true. They have been patiently waiting for 7 weeks. I promised them that I would get fish this weekend, but now this might not happen.

silentskream said:

if i were you i wouold re-seed the filter. I always seed the tank twice.. once at the beginning, and then again when the nitrites get high. this shortens my cycle time to as little as 2 weeks.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by reseed the filter?