Need some cycle help please

[FishJones]

Hi all, I'm new here, you guys seem really cool. I have a question, this is my deal. I have a 2.5 week old 29 gallon freshwater tank with 2 platies and 2 mollies. After a week my ammonia spiked to about 5.0 ppm, now for the past 10 days, it's stayed around 1.0 ppm (use the API liquid master kit). My ph has always been around 6.8-7.0. My nitrites have always been zero. For the past 3 days, my nitrates have been 5.0 ppm. Why do you guys think that I would be getting nitrate readings, but not any nitrite readings ever? I had added some Petco beneficial bacteria in there after a week and produced the 3 day white cloud. For the past 5 days, I've put Stability in there to see if I can get the Cycle going. I also have put gravel from an established tank in there a week ago. Just frustrating with these numbers. I've done weekly 30% water changes and it doesn't help the numbers any the next day when I take them. Thanks for anyone's help.

[100101010011]

this is normal for an established tank nitrates are quite common and they raise from the waste levels of your fish if im correct and are reduced my changing water frequently. It is all broken down into different levels and nitrates are not harmful at low lvls

[FishJones]

Thanks for your help, 1001....., do you think it's normal for my ammonia to stay the same so long? Never gets to 0.

[100101010011]

Im no major aquarium expert or anything but i would say its a little strange that theres even any there if your in the final process's of your cycle unless you still need to do one big water change. Normally by natural occurrence when your bio level is good and the cycles are completed nitrite and ammonia should be 0 and nitrates shouldnt be more then 20ppm and thats when a water change should occur. possibly your cycle is not completely done?

[FishJones]

Right, know I have a ways to go with the Cycle, just really weird how I get nitrate readings and never getting a nitrite reading. Disappointed Stability hasn't helped it, had read some good reviews about it helping to speed the Cycle up-my numbers just stayed the same except higher nitrates. Did a 1/3 water change other day, didn't help. Hope it fixes itself. Thanks for the advice.

[Blueiz]

you still have several more weeks to go in your cycle. All you need to do to your water is change it, font forget to add water conditioner to remove chlorine and chloramines to, to keep your ammonia and nitrites down.

Cycle and those other advertised beneficial bacteria are basically garbage. Dont waste your money on them. Your tank water most likely cloudy not because of a bacterial bloom from adding bacteria from a bottle, but from the product itself.

You need to keep your ammonia way down, it needs to be as close to zero as possible, which means you ahve to change as much water as often as necessary to achieve this.. Then you have to do the same tokeep your nitrites as close to zero as possible. The nitrates could be coming from your tap, or they could be coming from teh stuff you have added to your tank to try and help the cycle along.

There is a good sticky here on cycling a tank in the article forum.. Stop adding snake oil to your tank ..;)

[Blueiz]

To add, you ammonia is going to stay high until your biological filter has colonized enough bacteria to consume it. Remember, it is constantly rising, its like takeing one step forward and two steps back until your bacteria colony grows large enough to consume it all. Same with nitrites..

[FishJones]

Thanks Blueiz for the help. lol, liked your snake oil thing. I googled the thing about Stability and lot of people on forums said it worked so tried it. I will do more frequent water changes. That's the thing-I go to a LFS where the owner has been in business 35 years and he knows whats he's talking about and he was like, don't change the water during the Cycle at all. He isn't like the typical Petco person who doesn't know what they are talking about. Then you read online forums about changing it almost every day so you don't know what to do.

[Rbishop]

You are not cycled. You are in a fishy cycle. Luckily you have a good liquid test kit.

Ensure you follow the testing directions exactly as they can affect your readings.

Also do test on your tap water to see what you are starting with.

Do daily water changes, as many as it take to keep ammonia and nitrites below .25 ppm.

With a fishy cycle you need to change the water during the cycle or risk damaging the fish.

Leaving the ammonia in there doesn't cause them to grow faster...they only reproduce at a given rate for the temperature.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598

[Blueiz]

Thanks Blueiz for the help. lol, liked your snake oil thing. I googled the thing about Stability and lot of people on forums said it worked so tried it. I will do more frequent water changes. That's the thing-I go to a LFS where the owner has been in business 35 years and he knows whats he's talking about and he was like, don't change the water during the Cycle at all. He isn't like the typical Petco person who doesn't know what they are talking about. Then you read online forums about changing it almost every day so you don't know what to do.

The thing about a person being in business for 35 years is they often times dont see to go with the flow of changes. A LOT has changed in aqauaria over the last 35 years. Don't forget that if he stocks the product that he is trying to sale you, hes going to make it sound like gold so that you will buy it. Those cycle products do not contain the apporpriate bacteria to cycle your tank, and even if they did, without refirdgeration all the bacteria are dead.

Perhaps you can teach him a thing or two about aquaria, always look at the science behind what product you are using.

An example for ammonia.
day 1, ammonia is 1
day 2, ammonia is 1 from yesterday another 1 is going to be added today, this equals 2. Nothing is removing the ammonia.
day 3, ammonia is 2 from yesterday, add 1 today, this equals 3. Your ammonia eating bacteria is just starting, it may consume .2 ammonia. This leave you with 2.8ppm.

The above will continue like this til your tank is cycled. Your fish are only producing 1ppm of ammonia a day, so therefore your bacteria only need to grow to consume 1ppm of ammonia a day. When you do not change water, your ammonia eating bacteria is going to have to grow to consume 5+ppm of ammonia, therefore its going to take longer. Does this make since? The same example goes for nitrites. (its only an example, I do not know how much ammonia your tank puts out in one day) This is why changing the water during a cycle does not stop the cycle from continuing. It "may" make the cycle take a couple days longer than usual since you are trying to keep the ammonia low to avoid injuring the fish, but that's a given when doing a fishy cycle.

To note, if you are sure of the health of your lfs, get a used filter pad from him or a handful of gravel to put in your tank to seed it with beneficial bacteria, this will speed your cycle up..:) And is a lot cheaper than the snake oil hes trying to sell you, you may want to suggest to him to stop promoting the sell of useless products and start selling bioflter starters from his own tanks.. (he could actually make quiet a lot of money this way....)

[FishJones]

Thanks rbishop and Blueiz, I really appreciate the help. I just changed did a 50% water change so hopefully the readings will be better. Definitely on the testing directions, I read somewhere on the Nitrate test kit, you REALLY have to shake and bang the Nitrate #2 bottle on something to break up the crystals.

Great example Blueiz, really appreciate. I'm doing exactly what you guys say, doing daily 50% water change until the ammonia gets down to 0 and the nitrites to 0 (if they will ever move). I got a 2 big cups of gravel from FishTank Guy so hopefully that will help, been a week with it.

Let me ask you this, I have bad well water, the type you can smell the sulphur and stuff. Would something like Prime or Amquel plus be able to treat something like that? Or would it take that and other chemicals? I was thinking maybe instead of bottled water ($.25 a gallon, not bad at all) I could find something to just treat my well water going into the tank.

Thanks again for all the help!!

[Blueiz]

Let me ask you this, I have bad well water, the type you can smell the sulphur and stuff. Would something like Prime or Amquel plus be able to treat something like that? Or would it take that and other chemicals? I was thinking maybe instead of bottled water ($.25 a gallon, not bad at all) I could find something to just treat my well water going into the tank.

Your well water will be fine... I prefer prime as a water conditioner, its the best out there IMO :). The conditioner will help with the heavy metals, what have you in your well water. Carbon may remove the sulfur smell. If it doesn't and you do not like the smell of it, I imagine if its like most other places I have smelled this at it kind permeates throughout the house, you can go the bottle watered route..however its not needed... You could always by a filtration system, like the one you use for your own drinking water to put on your tap and use that water instead.

Remember, you want to add the least amount of chemicals to your tank as possible. There should be no need for you to add anything to your tank but water conditioner or nutrients (for ex live plant fertilizer). You should manage your tank through using care in feeding your fish not to overfeed, changing water on a regular basis, making sure the lighting isnt left on so long it causes algae, etc.. Not use chemicals to manage this for you. Since our tanks are an enclosed system without the ability that open water sources have to refresh itslef, we have to take the role of mother nature and do this for it..

[FishJones]

Thanks Blueiz, that's great info as always. I will get my well water tested today and make sure it's not too bad. Have that Prime, as you know, everyone loves Prime I noticed :) Really good to be able to use the well water because $4 a day plus a daily Wal Mart water fillup will get old lol.

Would you suggest getting a 300 watt heater to heat the water going into my tank? Definitely wouldn't use it for my tank, just a 100 watt heater takes over an hour to bring it up to 80 F. Thanks!!

[Blueiz]

I match the water temp from teh tap to that of the tank.. Using a heater to heat the water first would work too.

[FishJones]

That's a great idea, thanks blueiz. I was thinking of heating it and all like I did with my bottled waters.

[colinsk]

Thank you rbishop and Blueiz. For those of us in a cycle those are helpful posts.

[FishJones]

Hey Blueiz, my ammonia is zero (nitrites/nitrates are also zero) which is so awesome!! Been doing daily 50% water changes like you said. What should I do now with the water changes? Lesser ammount daily and increase it if my ammonia increases? Thanks!!

[severum mama]

Keep testing your water every day, for now. You should see your nitrite start to spike the way your ammonia did, and you will have to change enough water to keep nitrite under .25 ppm. Eventually, your nitrite will start to subside and you will see nitrate start to creep up. When your ammonia and nitrite consistently test at 0 and you have detectable nitrate, your tank has cycled. At that point, you should be able to back off on the water changes to once a week, or enough to keep nitrate under 20 ppm (assuming that you have stocked appropriately and do not overfeed). Good luck!!!:)

[FishJones]

Thank you severum mama for the help, really appreciate!!