Fishless cycle not budging- can I add Tetra Safestart???

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mirasmom

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Dec 28, 2010
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So I called the LFS to see if I could buy some gravel or something from them and one of their tanks to help my cycle kick in, and they said they don't recommend that (actually they acted like they'd never heard of fishless cycling) and recommended I just get some fish and add some TSS :swear:

SO ANYWAY, I'm obviously not going to empty my tank in the middle of a fishless cycle, and I have kids that are watching all this, I'm not going to kill anymore fish. BUT, would adding TSS help the bacteria along?? Here's where I am---

Ammonia 3-5 (It's been 3 for over 2 weeks and the nitrites are rising, but not touching the ammonia level, so I added just a couple of drops of ammonia last night to see if that would change something?? It didn't, but it's closer to 5 now than 3).

Nitrites 5+- they have been REALLY high, so the other day I changed out 50% of the water as recommended by several people to get them down to a readable level that perhaps they were stalling things. It hasn't helped.

Nitrates- Not quite 5 it seems, but not totally 0. I can see some orangeness to the water when I test it.

My pH has been 7.6-8 the entire cycle.

Would adding a bottle of TSS help the bacteria along? I have already added gravel from another tank which seems to have done nothing (it was added at the beginning of the cycle). I am thinking perhaps my ammonia was too high at that point and killed all the beneficial bacteria. What size of bottle do I get for a 26 gallon tank? I read somewhere that they recommend a bottle twice as big as it says for your tank??

Please help- I know I've had a lot of questions, but I seriously feel lost in the dark here.....:(
 
I wouldn't add the SafeStart. Fishless cycling is all about patience. Since you have Nitrites and Nitrates, you definitely have both colonies of bacteria. They're just not big enough to digest all of the ammonia/nitrite. Just wait; don't add anymore ammonia. The levels will fall soon.
 
Ok, I'm trying to be patient here. It's starting to kill me. Maybe I need to start testing every other day instead of every day.
 
Fishless cycleing isnt for the impatient...it can take 4-6 weeks to cycle a tank with fish. Fishless cycleing requires proper dosing of ammonia, which I am no expert at. So say that cycling with fish is inhumane, but some fish are very hardy to say that they dont seem to be all that disturbed by ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, and so on... I am not trying to recommend you do it one way or another. I know how it is to stare at an empty tank for a month or more though.

Best of luck.
 
Well when I started cycling my tank I read about the fishless cycle and read others doing it too. So I went that way. It does take awhile for sure you start to get impatient. And I had these huge media sponges from a friends pond filter in my tank with all this fish poo and bacteria in them and it still took a month! Good luck, have patience and all will be over soon enough:)

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throw in a minnow or two
 
I agree with Jason, but using the shrimp in a panty hose method will smell like dead fish in panty hose after a while. Noone ever says how long to leave that stinky thing in your tank :P
 
I don't think you need to do any water changes when doing a fishless cycle. What are you hurting in a tank with nothing in it?

The only reason do do a water change would be if you mess up and get your ammonia levels to high. To much ammonia will kill off the bacteria your trying to grow.

Once the cycle is complete, (0 ammonia, 0 NitrItes, Nitrates present) do a water change to drop the nitrAtes to less than 20ppm and add 2-3 fish.
 
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