Cycling timeline?

[onebyone]

I have a 10 gallon tank I set up at the end of the summer. I've been doing a fishless cycle, seeding with raw shrimp. I am running a top fin 20 gallon filter with a small amount of peat in stocking inside the pad. I also have some of those biofilter things- high surface area balls that give a good place for bacteria to colonize (I can't remember their name, sorry).

It's been 6 weeks today. My ammonia has been at 0ppm for several weeks, but nitrite is still off the charts. I'm using API test kits, which only read nitrite up to 5ppm. I'm still seeding with ammonia. Also, I added a considerable amount of plants about a week and a half ago if that matters.

Is this how long it's supposed to take? Whenever I read threads here about people setting up tanks it seems like their tank is magically cycled without fish in a couple weeks, even without using someone else's cycled filter media. How many more weeks can I expect to have to wait for it to cycle? Is there anything I can do to speed up the cycle other than using cycled filter media? It's been so long and I'm tired of looking at a fishless tank :( It's so hard to be this patient!

[Rbishop]

What is your nitrate reading?

[onebyone]

Nitrate right now is 5ppm. It was a bit higher (between 5 and 10ppm) before I added the plants.

[KarlTh]

Nothing you can do other than seed the tank.

[onebyone]

But how long should I be expecting?

[MarkInNC]

I am no expert. I did a fishless cycle and from start to finish it took just over eight weeks. I was adding amonia each day to a level of 4 or above. And the level would go to zero in 24 hours. During this time the nitrite level stayed high. Finally, I saw nitrates begin to increase. Then I saw nitrites drop. I saw one incidence of a bounce in the nitrite level, then they the nitrites went to zero. At this point the nitrate level was about 80. I did several 70% water changes and the nitrate level came down to the current of 10.

Mark

[rich311k]

The nitrite phase can take a very long time. If it is that high meaning over 10ppm a water change is probably a good idea. You will never need to process that much nitrite. You could be waiting a very long time.

[joel.uejio]

If seeding with mature media isn't an option, I would suggest buying some live plants. Pick up a few hardy plants like anubias and add to your tank -- plants process Nitrogen wastes and will also come with some of the bacteria you need.

Good luck!

[KarlTh]

How long is a piece of string? There's no predicting how long it will take without an initial seeding of bacteria.

[jamiya0727]

The nitrite phase can take a very long time. If it is that high meaning over 10ppm a water change is probably a good idea. You will never need to process that much nitrite. You could be waiting a very long time.

This is so odd. I never see nitrites in my tanks when cycling. I was starting to wonder if they really exist. :)

Jamiya

[fishdudeut]

Check the PH and KH and GH. I was doing a 55 gallon tank and the same thing happened to me and I had a PH crash.

I've done a fishless cycle on 3 different 10 gallon tanks and it never took longer than 2 weeks. I was using ammonia and not shrimp.

Robb

[onebyone]

Thank you for the suggestions! I did a ~60% water change yesterday, and I think my readings are finally on the API test kit's scale. I somehow lost the color chart though, so I'm not 100% sure! It still turns the bright pink color, but this time it actually takes 5 minutes to develop instead of turning that color instantly. I think I might be getting there! I think I'll do another water change this weekend or next week as well.

I have a considerable amount of plants, and I think they might be helping (though they make it hard to get an accurate scale of nitrate development because I don't know how much they are eating.

How low does pH have to go before it starts interfering with the cycle? I've been playing around with water parameters a bit because my water is terribly hard and I want to keep fish that enjoy soft water. I know it's not an absolute necessity to do this, because fish can adapt, but it gives me something tank related to do and I find it interesting. I mix tap (300+ ppm GH and 150+ ppm KH, pH ~8) with distilled water, about 50-50, and I've been using peat filtration as well. My GH appears to be down to ~100, KH very low, taking 2 drops to turn the solution's color for the API test kit (don't remember what that corresponds to). The LOWEST my pH has dropped to is 6.4, and I have been testing every day to measure how much of an effect peat moss has on the system.

I think my problem is that using raw shrimp as a source of ammonia, I have no way to regulate. In a small tank, I think it produces more than the desired 3-5ppm per day, and thus my ammonia bacteria, thriving, converts it to a LOT of nitrite. Too much nitrite for the nitrite colony to take care of. Maybe with regular, large water changes I can cut that down!

On the bright side (I think), I seem to be getting my first algae, which I have heard doesn't really show up until your tank is getting near cycled? It's brown, thread-like algae that's growing on the leaves of plants. Any ideas on the best way to remove it?

[onebyone]

I think I have bred an incredibly large ammonia-eating bacteria colony. Usually I add my raw shrimp to a stocking so I don't have to see it in the tank, but my last stocking shrimp just completely decomposed so I added fresh one. This time I didn't put it in a stocking. It actually appears to be decomposing at a pretty alarming rate, which makes me think that I just have too much ammonia-eating bacteria. So of course the nitrite bacteria, who take longer to metabolize nitrite (I think), can't keep up.

So my new question: can I kill off some of my ammonia-eating bacteria colony without killing too many? Can I feed half a raw shrimp, or maybe 1/4, or simply not add ammonia to the system for a couple of days? Or I could add the shrimp for only a couple hours a day so they aren't getting constant ammonia?