Cycling Woe's

C

cheryl

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I started cycling my tank about 3 weeks ago. Ammonia has gone up to 1.5, but nothing i dont have any nitrites yet.

I started cycling a smaller tank for a primary science class I teach a week ago. Today their ammonia is 4, nitrites 0.25 and nitrates 5. Why would theirs have had progress so much faster?? I am getting very discouraged... i dont seem to be getting anywhere at all.
 
Take some of the water from the smaller tank and dump it in your bigger tank. This should help speed it up, but will slow the cycling in the small tank slightly.

The small tank would progress faster because there's less water to 'contaminate' with ammonia, nitrite, nitrates.
 
joan, are you trying to say that the water from the small tank will speed up the cycling like as in it will put good bacteria in stuff in the bigger tank? please explain.
 
i think thats what shes saying Alex
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Shes explaining that adding the already cycled water into the noncycled tank/water, it will help the cycling speed up, due to being mixed with already cycled water
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(Message edited by jojo_is_here on February 24, 2006)
 
im still confused. i thought things like the substrate and stuff that bacteria grows on is what you are supposed to put in to speed up cycling. i didnt think that the water would increase the cyclying at all.
 
im not sure... i know im completely discouraged by the whole thing. i think im going to get plastic fish and attach them to sticks poking out of the water so i can "swim" them around... bout as close as im getting to putting anything in there. not even my ammonia is going up
 
paitence grasshopper!! your smaller tank would progress faster cause it wouldnt need to grow so much bacteria to get things moving and up to speed. add some fish flakes/something similar each day to this big tank and if you can, chuck a heater in there (apparently warm temps speed up the life cycles of the bacteria hence making your tank cycle a bit faster- seems a valid point to me?). maybe you are not feeding the bacteria enough so they are not multiplying?

i dont think water contains too much of the beneficial bacteria used in tanks but i could be wrong!
 
i threw in a piece of ham, because thats what i used in the small tank. the prawn is almost dissolved to nothing now. maybe the tank was just too big and there wasnt enough dead stuff in there?
i have some old heaters in the garage. i will see if any of them work. at the moment the temp in the tank is about 26
 
ok is there a filter in the small tank? maybe transfer some of the filter catridge from the small tank to the bigger one to speed it up a bit.
 
yeah i wont have access to the small tank again until thursday but i will take something from it then.
sharn: my husband says "yes master po".
 
lol cheryl! the bacteria need something to feed on while theyre multiplying and if they run out levels will drop back down cause they die (thats why people use fish, constant poops= constant food) so you have to make up for that some other way.
 
the piece of ham is pretty big- should keep things going for a while. My 5yr old daughter commented that the prawn now looks like a mammal. i will watch the ammonia levels and if they start to drop again before any nitrites show up i will first cry and then add more stuff to decay. i had fish in there to start with but they got fungus and died.
 
wow u seem to be putting a lot of food in there ?
all i used was 2 bits of brine shrimp "cubes" and the occasional bit of poo "3 footer" and it was cycled in just under a mth...
 
i just cant seem to get the ammonia levels to go up. it has been 3 weeks and it is only at 1. I thought it should be more like 5??
 
Ammonia should not be dropping without being converted to nitrites and then nitrates..

Do you have a lot of live plants in the tank? If you do then they can be disrupting the cycle by absorbing the ammonia. Are you seeing any nitrate formation?

Ed
 
ok ammonia is at 1, nitrites at 0 and nitrates at 10. I have never had a reading of nitrites- it has always been 0. Could i have missed it and it is cycled but i have an ammonia reading because of the big piece of ham? i was a bit perplexed because i couldnt get a higher ammonia reading (its never gone over 1.5).
 
I sat down and read through the instructions on the test kit again this morning. several of the tests say they are suitable for fresh water aquariums to which salt has been added. I havnt only not added salt, but i have taken it out, as i need to purify the water because of the condition of our tank water.
Perhaps thats why my test results have been a bit wierd.
Can someone please recommend a salt from here? http://www.theaquariumshop.com.au/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=71&cat=Salt im really confused as to what to get. I am guessing i will also need a water hardness test. What levels should both the GH and KH be for axolotls?
 
u dont need to add any salt...
and if u have live plants the salt "depending on how much u use" wont do em any good...i cant remember my ammonia going over about 2 when cycling and it cycled in just under a mth as i said, not sure about Sydney, but Adelaides water is pretty hard.
i would take any food u have in there out and just let it do it's thing now cause from what iv'e read so far u have given it heaps of food to feed off.
and now just sit and wait and be "patient"
 
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