Hi All,
I've been lurking and reading everything I can find out about fish and cycling. I'm not totally new to fish keeping, however recently realized I was doing everything wrong for the last several years. I apologize ahead of time for the long post, but it's kinda complicated.
I have a 28 gal tank which had my two 8 year old silver dollars - 5" and two 4 yr old clown loaches 3 & 4" (I know - I said I did everything wrong). I bought a 55 gallon (4 ft.) and set it up to give them more room after reading up on what I should have years ago. I'll get a bigger tank eventually as well, just don't tell my hubby yet. We live in a manufactured home and need to add support for a bigger tank.
I started the 55 gal. cycle fishless using raw shrimp almost 7 weeks ago and have had problems ever since. I have sand substrate and HOB filter (Topfin 60) and plastic plants. I was using Stress Coat and Stress zyme. It started out okay, then 6 days into it, my 28 gal tank broke and I had to move the fish to the new tank. I did water changes to keep the ammonia down, and after 3 days started to see nitrites. I did a 25% wc that day, and forgot to turn the filter flow back on. 2 days later I realized it was off, did another 50% wc, and have made sure it's on ever since. By then the nitrites disappeared. I think I must have killed off whatever good bacteria that had grown. I'm on well water and have nitrates out of the tap at 10 ppm. They have gradually gone up to 20 ppm over the first 4 weeks. PH is 8.0, GH around 100 ppm and KH around 225 ppm.
5 weeks in, still no nitrites, doing daily to every other day water changes to keep ammonia down, nitrates still at 20. Then my HOB filter started seizing up (from sand, I think). Cleaned it up daily to keep it going and bought a whisper 70EX filter, and kept them both running for a few days until the original filter seized up permanently near the end of week 5. I transferred all the filter media to the new filter and removed the old one and kept doing my daily water changes. I switched to prime and started stability the begining of week 6 and dose daily with both. I'm now mid-way through week 7 and still no nitrites.
The fish seem to be doing well and are eating fine. The CLs are pretty shy about the water changes and hide out a lot, but come out at night and do their dance routine. They just run away now whenever I come near the tank, probably because they think I'm going to do a wc on them.
In the meantime, I was able to repair the 28 gal, and it just completed cycling using pure ammonia. It cycled in 8 days using stability and it is removing the maintenance dose of ammonia within 12 hours - no sign of nitrites, and have stopped the stability. I'm not sure the stability made a difference, but the tank had been down for over 5 weeks when I started the cycle. Also, my hubby is complaining about all the water changes and telling me I'm draining the well.
Now for my questions.
Is there anything you can think of that would prevent me from getting the nitrites in the 55 gal? Since the other tank cycled, I don't think it's my water and I did see nitrites briefly the 2nd week of the cycle. Did the cycle restart when I changed the filter 12 days ago, and will it take longer with the fish in cycle?
Should I move the fish back to the 28 gal until I can get the 55 gal cycled with ammonia?
Any help or advice is very much appreciated.
Thank you!
Fran
I've been lurking and reading everything I can find out about fish and cycling. I'm not totally new to fish keeping, however recently realized I was doing everything wrong for the last several years. I apologize ahead of time for the long post, but it's kinda complicated.
I have a 28 gal tank which had my two 8 year old silver dollars - 5" and two 4 yr old clown loaches 3 & 4" (I know - I said I did everything wrong). I bought a 55 gallon (4 ft.) and set it up to give them more room after reading up on what I should have years ago. I'll get a bigger tank eventually as well, just don't tell my hubby yet. We live in a manufactured home and need to add support for a bigger tank.
I started the 55 gal. cycle fishless using raw shrimp almost 7 weeks ago and have had problems ever since. I have sand substrate and HOB filter (Topfin 60) and plastic plants. I was using Stress Coat and Stress zyme. It started out okay, then 6 days into it, my 28 gal tank broke and I had to move the fish to the new tank. I did water changes to keep the ammonia down, and after 3 days started to see nitrites. I did a 25% wc that day, and forgot to turn the filter flow back on. 2 days later I realized it was off, did another 50% wc, and have made sure it's on ever since. By then the nitrites disappeared. I think I must have killed off whatever good bacteria that had grown. I'm on well water and have nitrates out of the tap at 10 ppm. They have gradually gone up to 20 ppm over the first 4 weeks. PH is 8.0, GH around 100 ppm and KH around 225 ppm.
5 weeks in, still no nitrites, doing daily to every other day water changes to keep ammonia down, nitrates still at 20. Then my HOB filter started seizing up (from sand, I think). Cleaned it up daily to keep it going and bought a whisper 70EX filter, and kept them both running for a few days until the original filter seized up permanently near the end of week 5. I transferred all the filter media to the new filter and removed the old one and kept doing my daily water changes. I switched to prime and started stability the begining of week 6 and dose daily with both. I'm now mid-way through week 7 and still no nitrites.
The fish seem to be doing well and are eating fine. The CLs are pretty shy about the water changes and hide out a lot, but come out at night and do their dance routine. They just run away now whenever I come near the tank, probably because they think I'm going to do a wc on them.
In the meantime, I was able to repair the 28 gal, and it just completed cycling using pure ammonia. It cycled in 8 days using stability and it is removing the maintenance dose of ammonia within 12 hours - no sign of nitrites, and have stopped the stability. I'm not sure the stability made a difference, but the tank had been down for over 5 weeks when I started the cycle. Also, my hubby is complaining about all the water changes and telling me I'm draining the well.
Now for my questions.
Is there anything you can think of that would prevent me from getting the nitrites in the 55 gal? Since the other tank cycled, I don't think it's my water and I did see nitrites briefly the 2nd week of the cycle. Did the cycle restart when I changed the filter 12 days ago, and will it take longer with the fish in cycle?
Should I move the fish back to the 28 gal until I can get the 55 gal cycled with ammonia?
Any help or advice is very much appreciated.
Thank you!
Fran
