2 tanks, one wont finish cycling

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briggadane

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Mar 13, 2008
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Lakewood Ohio
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I set up 2 tanks a few weeks ago. A 40 and a 20. Both have guppies. The 40 has 3 bn plecos, the 20 has 5 CBS. I feed live food with a pinch of dry. Both are under stocked. Both have hobs, the 40 has an air stone. Both are heavily planted with wood decor. Substate is sand with a covering of glass or gravel. Both have heaters with settings in mid 70's. I used Terta Safe Start midway in the cycle of both. What I did to one tank, I did to the other. I've also been using Jungle Start Zyme after w/c, figuring it might not help, but prolly wont hurt.
The 20 is done cycling. The 40 is driving me crazy. The ammonia is way out of whack. It read .25 for days. I did 25-50% w/c daily. Yesterday ammonia went up to 1.0. I did 80% w/c. I also tore down the tank and stirred up the substrate. I found 2 SMALL dead fish. Very cloudy water when I was done, was clear by morning. Checked ammonia today, expected it to have gone down or finished cycling. Ammonia was at 2.0. I did 95% w/c, added more water, and did another w/c. Reading was between 0 and .25

Has anyone experienced this before? Other frequent w/c am I missing something? I considered using media from the 20 to help the 40, but the cycle is too new for me to want to disturb a balanced tank this soon.
 

Star_Rider

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heavily planted?? with established plants??
ammonia is usually non existent in a heavily planted tank..what plants?

dead fish would account for a spike in ammonia

if you have 1 tank established why not try moving some media from it to the other??
 

briggadane

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Mar 13, 2008
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Lakewood Ohio
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About 30-40 vals. regular and jungle, corkscrew...
3 different types of crypts(1 melted). 4-5 different types of swords(one is rather large, melting).
Anubias, some rather long. Mondo grass, wisteria, 2 types of java ferns... Small amounts of hornwort and baby tears. About 2 tbsp duckweed on top.

All are H2O2'd before putting in tanks.
All I can figure is somehow the cycle of broken and had to restart. How of why, I'm not sure. I did REMOVE fish during the cycle, but did not add any. I also added to the substate, but again, did not remove any. I am wondering if the glass pebbles/marbles leave too much space for debris to collect, and maybe it is interferring? I'll likely remove a few inches and add more sand. There is about 1/2 inch of sand in the 40 and about 3 inches of glass.
 

briggadane

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Mar 13, 2008
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Lakewood Ohio
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How is this for weird?
I took out all the glass and replaced substrate with FloraMax. I also added Marineland Total Care Bacteria.
That was 10 hours ago. My ammonia reading is now more toward 0 than .25
 

SirMuffin

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Sep 11, 2011
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The marbles might be letting the detritus collect and so it might be breaking down before you can remove it. Do you vacuum the substrate and when you do water chagnes? I had a similar problem with a prolonged cycle and turned out there was ammonia in the water. So when I would do the change and the next day it would still be in the water. Also, if you use prime then you might get a false negative. The prime can de activate the ammonia but when you use the liquid test kit it changes the water in the tube and the ammonia can become active again and show up on the test. Hope it works out.
 
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