Fishless cycle not cycling, potential problems?

Quartermain said:
I also added one package of BioSpira (any good LFS will have it)....(snip)
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Unfortunately, that's true in the US...but, at this point, you cannot buy BioSpira in Canada. I confirmed with Marineland that they do not have approval for sale here, and don't expect that to change anytime soon. :( I don't know if you could even order it and have it shipped to Canada...even if you could it would probably become useless without proper refrigeration while it waited to be cleared through customs.
 
daveedka said:
I'm still curious, both of these factors can effect the cyle, and it may help if we actually knew the numbers.
Dave
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Sorry, went out looking for a couple more kits tonight for a question I had about my other tank and forgot to reply about this.

The tank has been between 80 and 82 the entire time and the PH is roughly 7.6.

edit: The only other thing is that my light has not been turned on consistently... Would that matter? I sometimes go 2 days without turning it on, but other days leave it on for 16 hours.
 
I have been researching the fishless cycle for some months now and have heard that the essential bacteria need temps from mid to high 80s to thrive. Hwen i had a 55g, i cycled my tank in just under 2 weeks using ammonia, a handfull of gravel and hagens cycle.

Both Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter have optimal temperature ranges for growth and metabolism of 30 - 35 C (86 - 95 F) (Lawson, p. 234, and Johnson).

HTH
 
Both Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter have optimal temperature ranges for growth and metabolism of 30 - 35 C (86 - 95 F) (Lawson, p. 234, and Johnson).
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contrary to popular belief these aren't the bacteria we are working with, secondly. Normal tropical tank temps are fine (obviously) or we would have trouble when we keep our fish at lower temps than mid-to high 80's.

My concern was with Kh consumption which happens very rapidly at the ammonia levels used for FC. if KH is consumed, PH will crash and stall/kill the cycle in progress. If PH is 7.6 it's probably just fine, as is the current temp. Light doesn't matter, except that algea loves ammonia and light, so I'd reccomend leaving the light off until the cycle is estabilished.
Dave
 
Did you use a dechlorinator on your water?
 
pbecot01 said:
Did you use a dechlorinator on your water?
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I can't remember with 100% assurance, but I’m close to certain that I did treat the water with Prime and let it sit overnight before I added the ammonia.

I just tested again prior to making this post.

Ammonia ≈ 5ppm
Nitrite = 0ppm
pH ≈ 7.3

Any other thoughts?

Does the decaying shrimp thing work with freshwater aquariums too? I was thinking about scrapping this attempt, doing a water change and maybe just tossing a shrimp in there for a few weeks. Bad idea? (I only plan on having 2 fish total in this 10g).
 
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The decaying shrimp method will work, but it won't work any better or faster than using pure ammonia. Also, with pure ammonia you have control of the ammonia levels which can be a plus :)

I'm stumped as to why you're not seeing any action going on here, but there is something obviously wrong. You should definitely be seeing nitrItes by now. Do you have any other fish tanks? or do you have a friend with an established tank? Maybe you can get some filter squeezings and/or gravel from an established tank to help jumpstart things.

Water changes can never hurt, you may try doing a 50% water change and retreat with your dechlor to make sure that's not the issue. Then readd ammonia to about 3ppm and see what happens from there.

Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress. Wish I had better answers for you :)
 
Thanks for all your help everyone.

ArkyLady, I'll take your advice and do the 50% change and add the dechlor and then I'll drop in a sponge from my other tank to see if that helps.

I'll put this post on the backburner for a week or so and then bump it back up to let you all know if anything changes.

Thanks again!
 
Just a little update on this... I didn't do a water change, but I dropped a cycled sponge from one of my other tanks into this 10g a couple nights ago and now, 48 hours later, the ammonia has dropped from 5ppm to roughly 1ppm.

Still no signs of nitrites, but I would guess this means the cycle wasn't broke afterall? Just really really slow perhaps??
 
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