Boy, I hate to ask all this but....

K

kentbphat

AC Members
Jan 11, 2005
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Youngstown, OH
home.earthlink.net
Relative newbie (had Bettas and Cory's growing up and did fine) with a 10G tank.
Anyway, trying to successfully cycle with 2 zebra danios. It has been three weeks today. From the beginning, I have been using AMMOlock, because our local water company (who I procured a list of chemicals in our water from) adds ammonia. I read thouroughly that AMMO does not eliminate ammonia and merely makes it non-toxic. According to Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, it also won't affect their ammonia test kit (which is what I use.)

Additionally, our starting PH is ridiculously high, over 9. Before setup, I've used the PH tabs to correct the PH and buffer. I also use them when I've been doing water changes. The PH has been a steady 7.2 over the three weeks.

Meanwhile, the Danios have been fine. Very active, eating like they are starved when I feed them (two small feedings a day.) I am also doing daily water changes.

Thanks for reading so far, here come the questions:
After three weeks, still no nitrites. Is my PH buffering or AMMOlock (both of which I was thinking are required in my situation) delaying the cycle or preventing it entirely? Should I just be patient in waiting for the nitrites to start forming?

Also, I am seeing now a brown substance attaching to the filter and filters power cord, on sections of the heater, and most items in the tank. Could that be algae?

Anyway, I am trying to do this well, while making sure the fish are safe (hence the ammolock). What (other than fishless cycle) should I be doing. Or is this the norm?

Here are my water specs:
Temp: 74
PH 7.2
Ammonia - between 1ppm and 4ppm (Depending on the water change)
Nitrites - zero
Nitrates - zero
I have not checked the hardness of the water either. Didn't know if I should or not. I do know that the water is alkaline (obviously) and a bit on the hard side.

Anyway, thanks again for reading all this. Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. I'm doing all this for my 20 month old son, who absolutely loves fish. Goes nuts for fish. I want to make sure I get this right for him!

Thanks,
Kent
 
The reason that your cycle has not started yet is the Ammo-Lock. It will not allow bacteria to grow, because it absorbs the ammonia.

Your Water supply adds ammonia? :thud:
Are you sure its not chloramine? That will test as ammonia if you use a normal de-chlorinator. If you have chloramine, you need to get something that will get rid of the chloramine also.(I use Tetra Aqua-Safe)

Are you useing a strip test for the PH, or a dropper one? The reason I ask is that I have used the strip tests before, and found that they are way off(compared to the drop ones). I would also be leery of adding chemicals to alter the PH of the water. If you feel it is nessicary to alter the PH, I would get some RO water(or buy a RO filter, theyre not horribly expensive for a small unit), and mix that in to get the desired PH. IMO that will make the PH more stable, and less likely to have a bad swing.

The brown stuff is probaly algea. Wouldn't worry too much about it right now, just scrub it off.
 
I ditto the previous post. If you are using AMMOLOCK you are not killing the ammonia which is needed to cycle your tank. All you should have to add to your tap water is Wardleys Chlor Out or Prime. THese are the two products I have used as my city water has chlorine in it.

My tap water is about 7.6Ph which is a bit high for my neon tank. I try to keep it as close to 7.0 as I can. I use a product called proper Ph. It comes in 7.0 7.2 and 7.5 I think. It has served me wonderfully for the past 2 months. When I first set the tank up I added the full dose for the 20g capacity. When doing weekly water changes I use the recommended dose for the 10g of water I remove. I test my water the day after water changes and show no fluctuation from the 7.0 reading, and my fish are all healthy and happy.

Im not sure if it will work with as much success as I have had since your water is 9.0, but it may be worth a shot.

If you only have a 10g tank thoug, it may be cheaper and easier to use RO water form the store. 5g a week wouldn't cost you more than a few dollars and may be easier and cheaper in the long run than chemically altering your water.
 
I was under the impression that the products that neutralize ammonia
allow the nitrogen cycle to progress. People who have chloramines in their water use such products all the time and have established biological filtering.

From a couple sites I trust:

The Krib:
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
As a final caution, several commercial products (e.g., ``Amquel'' or "Ammo-Lock'') safely neutralize ammonia's toxicity. Amquel does not remove the ammonia, it simply neutralizes its toxicity. Biological filtration is still needed to convert the (neutralized) ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. Thus, adding Amquel causes the ammonia produced by the fish to be neutralized instantly, yet still allows the nitrogen cycle to proceed.

The Skeptical Aquarist:
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/water/chlorine.shtml
If you're de-chloraminating as in 3. with commercial products, it's useful to know that Ammo-Lock2 (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) and AmQuel (Kordon) each react with the ammonia to form non-toxic, inert, moderately stable substances. With these products, the ammonia is bound, but not actually removed. It does remain available to the nitrifying bacteria, I understand; that's an important consideration.
 
Thank you all very much!
I thought Kveeti was right, I had read that AMMOlock would still allow the nitrogen cycle to complete.
Jason, I talked directly with the manager at the water company when I requested the report. We do have chloramine, which I knew, but he also mentioned they add ammonia to the water, "Isn't that important to you fish people?" I nearly died.

I just tested the water again and here's where I'm at (after a 50% water change last night at 7PM)

PH 7.2 (use Jungle labs tank buddies for community tank)
Ammonia - 4.0
Nitrites - now look between 0 and 0.25! Definitely not zero anymore, but definitely not at the next line on the Aquarium Pharm test kit (I use the dropper kit, not the strips.)
Nitrates - 0

If there are indeed nitrites slowly forming, now what? What type of time frame am I looking at for the nitrates to kick in and win this crazy war? If I am smoking a fat doobie and there are no nitrites, do I just keep waiting?

Also, should I continue with the near daily water changes? Obviously the AMMOlock is working, I don't imagine fish could live for nearly a month in water with that much ammonia, let alone thrive.

Sorry to open up even more questions. I do appreciate your responses. It seems that fish people (which I sure hope to become one) are very cool. It can be kind of daunting to post on here, especially when you have limited knowledge, but you all seem very cool.
 
Your goal right now is to keep your ammonia levels below 1 ppm. Just keep doing your ammonia testing daily, twice daily. If you happen to get a very high reading, do not hesitate to do a couple 50% water changes back to back.

Just out of curiosity, have you tested your water after treating it (before it goes in the tank)?
 
Let the water sit in a glass and test the ammoina levels. There is no reason that any one should be adding just ammoina to your water.

Stop using the AMMO-lock. Just let the bacteria build up by it self. Test the water every day and when the ammoina is at about 1ppm change 25% of the water. Keep doing this untill you get nitrites. Let that go to 1ppm then change the water again. You may have to do this a few times untill you get nitrates.

You want to stop using thoes pH buffers! They will set the pH to 7 for a few minutes and then it will soon go back to what ever it was before. Please look up how to change (lower) the pH of your water with peat in the filter.
 
Thank you guys very much.

The water, after sitting in the glass for 30 minutes is registering a ph of over 9 (my chart only goes to 9, it is off the charts) and ammonia is at 1ppm. I am not making this up. I didn't ask why the mahoning county water dept adds ammonia, but I am starting with two strikes against me. Is this a lost cause?

I can't imagine the fish living without the ammolock. This is my second pair of danios. The first pair I tried without the ammolock and did daily water changes. They lasted 3 days. That's why I've been using the ammolock, and this pair is thriving. If I went without ammolock, I'd be doing 4-5 water changes a day, and I'm afraid I can't keep up with that. Let alone, when starting with 1ppm, how can it go lower? I don't want to kill these fish, that's for sure.

I skipped 2 days sometime last week and the PH was constant at 7.2. I've been adding the buffers at every water change. They seem to be working. Can I leave those fish in water over 9? I'll have to find info on using peat, but so far the buffers seem to be doing the job. I'm not comfortable using them, but I would feel worse about putting them in ultrahigh ph water.

Anyway, I feel like I should give up. But **** it, I just can't do that. My little dude loves fish and I want him to have some. And, I've spent too much money...

HELP!
 
If these fish die, then SERIOUSLY consider doing a fishless cycle with your tank until you get all the problems worked out. No matter how badly you want to have fish right now, its obviously not doing anyone a service my killing them in the process.

You can find peat at most any Home Depot or Lowes but I doubt simply adding a little wad to a filter is going to drop your Ph to a place where it needs to be.

Perhaps, since you have such a relatively small tank, you can buy the peat and soak it in a 5g bucket full of treated (for chlorine not ammo lock) tap water. Let it soak a day or two and test the water for Ph only. If the Ph of that water is where you need it, then you have solved your need to buffer the Ph. If the water is too brown (from all the peat) you can easily clear that up with some carbon in your filter or you could pre-filter it with carbon before you added it to your tank. And btw, the brown tint the water will take with the peat will be totally harmless to your fish.
 
Thanks for the feedback. If my fish don't get through this, I will most definitely be doing a fishless cycle. Didn't know about that until I got going in all this.

Will look into peat as well.

Thanks again, all of you, for your help and patience!

Rock on.
 
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