Stalled cycle - no signs of nitrites

[Olga]

Hi all,

I want to start off by saying that I have successfully cycled 7 tanks with fish in it and this is my first time doing it fishless. I've decided to set up a 20 gallon tank for my shrimp with canister and sponge filter walls installed. I had also put driftwood, some moss, duckweed, shrimp substrate, and a few plants in it. I also have about 20 assassin snails and 20 amano shrimp there (I guess it's not entirely fishless), all of which are alive and grabbing food when I feed.

It's my 4th week now, where I have following readings:

Ammonia 2-3 ppm
Nitrites 0 ppm
Nitrates 0 ppm
pH 6.0 ppm
Temp 76 degrees

All of my test I do with API master kit. I had initially added Dr Tim ammonia in order to raise it and added various (huge amount) of bacteria to it - Dr Tim, tetra easy start plus, Seachem Seed bacteria, Dr Foster and Smith branded bacteria... Basically everything I had (several bottles of each) and no results..

I'm stuck. Help?

 

[OrionGirl]

Have you verified that ammonia level? Shrimp in general are pretty sensitive to it, so the fact that your amanos are alive makes that number very suspect to me. Adding Dr Tim's and plants means you won't see a traditional cycle.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Olga, I had a similar situation when trying to fish-less cycle a 29g tank by adding "pure" household ammonia. At the time I was dosing ammonia to read closer to the 3-4ppm range with my API master test kit. Weeks went by. The issue for me was, over time nitrites rose to the point they were well beyond what the API kit could measure, thus the nitrite test would read a false zero PPM. I had to do 2 large water changes back to back to get nitrites to a level I could read them. Once I did this the cycle continued normally and I was off and running a few days later with the tank producing nothing but nitrates.

 

[Olga]

I will do water change tonight and see how it goes. Thank you for your responses.

 

[Olga]

Olga, I had a similar situation when trying to fish-less cycle a 29g tank by adding "pure" household ammonia. At the time I was dosing ammonia to read closer to the 3-4ppm range with my API master test kit. Weeks went by. The issue for me was, over time nitrites rose to the point they were well beyond what the API kit could measure, thus the nitrite test would read a false zero PPM. I had to do 2 large water changes back to back to get nitrites to a level I could read them. Once I did this the cycle continued normally and I was off and running a few days later with the tank producing nothing but nitrates.

hmmm now that's a scary thought of having nitrites of the chart... wouldn't all of my amano shrimp be dead by now then? i mean they've been there for a week now and all doing fine... i will definitely do water change tonight....

 

[Olga]

Have you verified that ammonia level? Shrimp in general are pretty sensitive to it, so the fact that your amanos are alive makes that number very suspect to me. Adding Dr Tim's and plants means you won't see a traditional cycle.

yes. i'm usually testing most of my tanks at the same time and i got this whole 'organization system' developed, so that i do not confuse probes and i had different readings for different tanks... so i'm about 85% sure that it's correct (now i have 15% of doubt lol)

 

[OrionGirl]

Test the tank water, then take a cup of tank water, add a cup of distilled or RO water, test. If it doesn't show roughly half the ammonia, I'd call it suspect. Any nitrates?

As mentioned, though, once you add plants and additives (and Tim's is one that testing has shown to work, so long as it's stored properly), it gets more challenging to test. Plants take up ammonia, so there are less available for the bacteria/microorganisms. That means nitrites can take a long time to show up in detectable levels.

 

[FreshyFresh]

hmmm now that's a scary thought of having nitrites of the chart... wouldn't all of my amano shrimp be dead by now then? i mean they've been there for a week now and all doing fine... i will definitely do water change tonight....

Yeah, most likely they would given the toxicity of nitrites. I assumed when you said you were doing a fishless cycle, you were fish and critter-less in the tank while adding ammonia.

 

[Olga]

Test the tank water, then take a cup of tank water, add a cup of distilled or RO water, test. If it doesn't show roughly half the ammonia, I'd call it suspect. Any nitrates?

As mentioned, though, once you add plants and additives (and Tim's is one that testing has shown to work, so long as it's stored properly), it gets more challenging to test. Plants take up ammonia, so there are less available for the bacteria/microorganisms. That means nitrites can take a long time to show up in detectable levels.

Thank you OrionGirl, will try it tonight. No, no nitrates - bright yellow test result.

 

[Olga]

Yeah, most likely they would given the toxicity of nitrites. I assumed when you said you were doing a fishless cycle, you were fish and critter-less in the tank while adding ammonia.

Yeah, I guess that's where my biggest misconception was. I didn't realize that fishless means nothing live including shrimp and snails.
At the beginning I had nothing in the tank but substrate and wood and that's when I added ammonia. Three weeks later with no changes I thought that maybe by adding some hardy shrimp and snails would give bio some "natural" ammonia, but that's on the 4th week. Now I'm in 5th week with no change and that's why I started to reach out to everyone for help.