Hi everyone. I'm probably going to provide way more information than is necessary but hopefully it'll be enough to start figuring out what I'm doing wrong.
I got my first aquarium (55 gallon) in May and set it up and added water on August 13th. After reading about how harmful it can be to add fish right away I opted to do the fishless cycle. I treated my water with conditioner (API Tap Water Conditioner: 1ml to every 5gallon bucket of water) to take all the chlorine/other bad stuff out, turned my heater up to about 81-84 degrees, let my air bubbler start powering my two little decorations that bubble and turned on my two tank filters (one MarineLand Penguin 350 Biowheel power filter and one aquatech power filter that came with the aquarium which is sized for 30-60 gallon aquariums). Next I added pure ammonia (Austin's Clear Ammonia which after researching it seems like it has an ammonia concentration of 2 percent). I dosed the water with ammonia to about 4-5 ppm and the pH has stayed at about 7.7 or 7.8 on the API master test kit (I'm not good at comparing the colors on the chart, it seems to be too light to be 7.4 but too dark to be 7.8). After about 3-4 weeks the ammonia level fell to about 2-3 with no nitrites/nitrates so I dosed the tank back up to about 4-5 ppm. I've done this process about two or three times as of a few weeks ago per the advice of a few fishless cycling guides I've seen but never saw any nitrites or nitrates at all, confirmed with two different test kits (API master and test strips of a different brand). After about 6 weeks I got frustrated and read about adding bacteria in a bottle (in my case I used API Quick Start using the usual 10ml for every 10 gallons of water) so I dosed that appropriately and waited. All that happened was my water went cloudy with only a small drop in ammonia (about 2-3) but again no change in nitrates or nitrites. I had my water go cloudy after about the first 2-3 weeks into the cycle which I read is/was a bacterial bloom and it cleared up on its own in less than a week. My water right after the quick start addition went cloudy for close to three weeks. After changing the carbon pads in both filters the water has gradually cleaned up. I added water probably every two-three weeks as needed due to evaporation. I had never vacuumed out/taken out water to do a proper water change, only added water. I was hesitant to replace the carbon filters as I was afraid of throwing out any beneficial bacteria that had grown on them but after my water remained cloudy I determined the carbon was the problem as after the pads were replaced the water gradually cleared and is almost back to crisp like it was before.
So I asked around for advice and was told I was doing the right things but I had hit a snag and could probably get back on track fairly quickly. I started doing (as was suggested to me) to start changing out half the water every two days. Allow the tap water conditioner to sit in the 5 gallon bucket with the new fill water for at least 15 minutes before adding it to the fish tank. And once the tank was refilled, to add the appropriate amount of quick start to the tank (in this case about 25 ml as I was adding about 25 gallons of water). This helped clear my water up for sure but...still no nitrites in the least bit. At all. I think at one point during this whole process I may have seen the nitrite level get to maybe like a .15 or .10 but definitely not even the next color level up on the API test kit (the one right after the blue 0, the light purple color). Of course, nitrates have obviously never shown above 0 either. I was also informed that I'm adding too much ammonia, that I should let it fall to 0 before adding more, so I've been doing that.
I have people who are telling me "just add a few fish, they'll be fine and the tank will cycle through with them" but I don't want to do that after reading how harmful it can be to fish. I'd love to just add fish so I can have them to look at but I'd rather think of the fish being comfortable first and my being amused by them second, so waiting it out until it's safe to add them. But I am getting a little impatient at this point. Am I doing something wrong? Did I do something wrong? Do I just have to continue to wait this out? I know cycling in general is a waiting game and fishless cycles can seem like they take forever since there's no fish to look at but...I think something should have been happening now as I'm now 10 weeks into the cycle.
Additional information that might be helpful:
-I have no live plants in the tank. Only artificial.
-I have not/never added any other chemicals other than water conditioner, ammonia, and quick start.
-I've put fish food in there on many occasions, especially over the last two weeks where I have been doing it daily.
-My regular tap water seems to read about...20 mg/L for alkalinity (sorry if that's not a good unit of measurement...just using what's on the test strip).
-My tap water pH is almost the same as the aquarium water, if not almost then exactly the same.
-Tap water hardness is at about 50 mg/L (again, sorry if sucky measurement unit, I'm only going by the test strips).
-Tank water temperature has been about 83-85 depending on the time of day.
I'd provide links to everything I'm using but I'm not able to because of low post count/new member. But what I'm using/what I have isn't anything fancy so hopefully it's clear what I've got going on here.
I got my first aquarium (55 gallon) in May and set it up and added water on August 13th. After reading about how harmful it can be to add fish right away I opted to do the fishless cycle. I treated my water with conditioner (API Tap Water Conditioner: 1ml to every 5gallon bucket of water) to take all the chlorine/other bad stuff out, turned my heater up to about 81-84 degrees, let my air bubbler start powering my two little decorations that bubble and turned on my two tank filters (one MarineLand Penguin 350 Biowheel power filter and one aquatech power filter that came with the aquarium which is sized for 30-60 gallon aquariums). Next I added pure ammonia (Austin's Clear Ammonia which after researching it seems like it has an ammonia concentration of 2 percent). I dosed the water with ammonia to about 4-5 ppm and the pH has stayed at about 7.7 or 7.8 on the API master test kit (I'm not good at comparing the colors on the chart, it seems to be too light to be 7.4 but too dark to be 7.8). After about 3-4 weeks the ammonia level fell to about 2-3 with no nitrites/nitrates so I dosed the tank back up to about 4-5 ppm. I've done this process about two or three times as of a few weeks ago per the advice of a few fishless cycling guides I've seen but never saw any nitrites or nitrates at all, confirmed with two different test kits (API master and test strips of a different brand). After about 6 weeks I got frustrated and read about adding bacteria in a bottle (in my case I used API Quick Start using the usual 10ml for every 10 gallons of water) so I dosed that appropriately and waited. All that happened was my water went cloudy with only a small drop in ammonia (about 2-3) but again no change in nitrates or nitrites. I had my water go cloudy after about the first 2-3 weeks into the cycle which I read is/was a bacterial bloom and it cleared up on its own in less than a week. My water right after the quick start addition went cloudy for close to three weeks. After changing the carbon pads in both filters the water has gradually cleaned up. I added water probably every two-three weeks as needed due to evaporation. I had never vacuumed out/taken out water to do a proper water change, only added water. I was hesitant to replace the carbon filters as I was afraid of throwing out any beneficial bacteria that had grown on them but after my water remained cloudy I determined the carbon was the problem as after the pads were replaced the water gradually cleared and is almost back to crisp like it was before.
So I asked around for advice and was told I was doing the right things but I had hit a snag and could probably get back on track fairly quickly. I started doing (as was suggested to me) to start changing out half the water every two days. Allow the tap water conditioner to sit in the 5 gallon bucket with the new fill water for at least 15 minutes before adding it to the fish tank. And once the tank was refilled, to add the appropriate amount of quick start to the tank (in this case about 25 ml as I was adding about 25 gallons of water). This helped clear my water up for sure but...still no nitrites in the least bit. At all. I think at one point during this whole process I may have seen the nitrite level get to maybe like a .15 or .10 but definitely not even the next color level up on the API test kit (the one right after the blue 0, the light purple color). Of course, nitrates have obviously never shown above 0 either. I was also informed that I'm adding too much ammonia, that I should let it fall to 0 before adding more, so I've been doing that.
I have people who are telling me "just add a few fish, they'll be fine and the tank will cycle through with them" but I don't want to do that after reading how harmful it can be to fish. I'd love to just add fish so I can have them to look at but I'd rather think of the fish being comfortable first and my being amused by them second, so waiting it out until it's safe to add them. But I am getting a little impatient at this point. Am I doing something wrong? Did I do something wrong? Do I just have to continue to wait this out? I know cycling in general is a waiting game and fishless cycles can seem like they take forever since there's no fish to look at but...I think something should have been happening now as I'm now 10 weeks into the cycle.
Additional information that might be helpful:
-I have no live plants in the tank. Only artificial.
-I have not/never added any other chemicals other than water conditioner, ammonia, and quick start.
-I've put fish food in there on many occasions, especially over the last two weeks where I have been doing it daily.
-My regular tap water seems to read about...20 mg/L for alkalinity (sorry if that's not a good unit of measurement...just using what's on the test strip).
-My tap water pH is almost the same as the aquarium water, if not almost then exactly the same.
-Tap water hardness is at about 50 mg/L (again, sorry if sucky measurement unit, I'm only going by the test strips).
-Tank water temperature has been about 83-85 depending on the time of day.
I'd provide links to everything I'm using but I'm not able to because of low post count/new member. But what I'm using/what I have isn't anything fancy so hopefully it's clear what I've got going on here.
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