fishless cycling 6 weeks in..HELP

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nichole

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I am six weeks into fishless cycling my 45 gal tank. I had my nitrite spike around the second week and they have been at zero since about a week after that and have stayed that way. My nitrates are between 40-60. The tank seems to be able to burn through about 2 ppms in a 24 hour period. I add back ammonia to get it back to 5 ppm and then it is a constant cycle of burning through it down to 2-3 ppms every day.
It has been 6 weeks this past Tuesday...what am I doing wrong? Or does it just take more time?
Thanks in advance for you help.
 
When your nitrites dropped back to 0, your tank was cycled. You are now way overdosing ammonia. 3-4 drops/10-gals is sufficient to hold the cylce til you add fish.

Change to this dosing routine, when you can dose and then test 0 ammonia in 1-2 hrs afterwords, add fish.
 
6 weeks into fishless cycling????

I am confused now. All the posts I have read on this forum say you are to keep adding the ammonia back to 5 ppm and when the nitrites are 0 and the tank can burn through the 5 ppm of ammonia in 24 hours then I am cycled. Can someone please clarify this for me? Thanks.
 
Originally posted by TwoTankAmin
3-4 drops/10-gals is sufficient to hold the cylce til you add fish.
Click to expand...

Unless, of course your ammonia is a weaker concentration or has weakened through age, exposure to light…. Better to stick to ppm dosing.

So the problem is that your nitrites have been at 0 for a month but you still get high ammonia results after 24 hrs? Weird. I'd take a sample to your friendly and reliable LFS to check the accuracy of the test kit. I'd also look at whatever your using as a dechlorinator and see if its likely to screw up ammonia tests (some do).

In the meantime, try cutting your dosage in half. This was the original protocol laid out in the Chris Cow article. Some reports have come back in suggesting that staying high throughout the cycle can produce an unnecessarily hostile enviroment for the bacteria and slow things down quite a bit. This usually seems to manifest as an endless nitrite spike, not an endless ammonia spike.

Those are just some hunches. Can't really say for sure… but 6 weeks is long and ammonia should have been zeroing for awhile now.

HTH

HTH
 
thanks

Thanks for all of your help. I am now thinking our test kit may be off. It is starting to make sense to me now...we have been at 2ppm of ammonia after 24 hours for three weeks now. We are going to take some water to the LFS and we are going to buy a new ammonia test kit.
Thanks again.
 
Also check the pH and KH of the tank - if you have soft to very soft water, the KH will be burned out and the pH will drp low enough to slow or damage the nitrification bacteria.

You should have at least 3 degrees KH for fishless cycling.

I agree that ammonia dosing can and should drop back after nitrites appear and certainly after they peak.
 
fishless cycling 6 weeks in...HELP!

I tested the water this afternoon and my readings were ammonia 2, nitrite 0, nitrates 40, and ph 6 or maybe even lower. I tested the water out of my tap and it has a ph of 7.6. Could not find a kh test at the lfs I went to. I decided to do a water change. I changed probably 80%. About three hours later I re ran the tests ammonia 1, nitrite 2-3, nitrates 10, and ph 6.4. Is it possible that something is causing my ph to drop too low and this is causing the tank not to cycle?? I am at a real loss at this point and very frustrated. Any more thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks again.

Again tank stats are:
45 gl
under gravel filter
one power head
fluval 304
 
one thing i read says that lower pH makes ammonia less toxic? if her pH is very low could this be messing with her cycle? also if the ph is swinging it might be because you have softwater. I dont really know much about this im just hoping that i can bump this up to the top so you can get some more advice
 
nichole, your low pH is the problem. At such low pH, the nitrifying bacterial community slows to a crawl.

A pinch of sodium bicarbonate (the "bicarb" in the bathroom medicine chest) for now (fast-acting), and a tablespoon of crushed coral in the filtration for later (steady supply), will support the KH and raise the pH and your cycle will be complete by this weekend.

Take a peanut butter jar to the lfs and get them to fill it for you from their open bag of crushed coral. They may even charge you...
 
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