Tank doesn't seem to be cycling

I have been cycling my tank for almost 2.5 weeks now. We got our axolotl almost 2 weeks ago which I have mentioned in a previous post. We had issues initially with nitrate in the tap water but someone from the water board came and tested the water and said that the nitrates are of safe level and not as high as testing. Our axolotl has been fine so wasn't too concerning. We do around 20% water change daily and have been testing the water daily also. Nitrites went up a little bit but now back to 0 but ammonia is not. I syphon the tank daily and we use a feeding jar for feeding. Any poop is removed ASAP. Like I said our Axie is fine, if anything better than when we got it. It's gills have really grown and gone really fluffy.

I don't know why the tank isn't really doing anything cycling wise...any suggestions?

Hopefully we can get your tank sorted out here. Sorry for all the questions, but I'm not sure how else to help you.

I noticed in another thread that your tap water has ammonia normally. Do they use chloramine to treat the water where you live? What water dechlorinator are you using? Do you age your water 24 hours? How large is your tank? What filter are you using? What type of media is in the filter? (Sorry if you've already said and I missed it in your threads) Did you ever add plants? Have your nitrates gone up since the nitrites came and went?

Regarding the high nitrate issue, if you're still concerned about it, you could try something like a HOB Pothos nitrate filter. (Lost my link, but if you're interested and can't find a how-to in a google search, I'll see if I can't find it again)

I'm wondering if your cycle has actually completed but the ammonia in your tap water is still throwing off your tests. I'm glad your axie is doing well.

sabre said:

Hopefully we can get your tank sorted out here. Sorry for all the questions, but I'm not sure how else to help you.

I noticed in another thread that your tap water has ammonia normally. Do they use chloramine to treat the water where you live? What water dechlorinator are you using? Do you age your water 24 hours? How large is your tank? What filter are you using? What type of media is in the filter? (Sorry if you've already said and I missed it in your threads) Did you ever add plants? Have your nitrates gone up since the nitrites came and went?

Regarding the high nitrate issue, if you're still concerned about it, you could try something like a HOB Pothos nitrate filter. (Lost my link, but if you're interested and can't find a how-to in a google search, I'll see if I can't find it again)

I'm wondering if your cycle has actually completed but the ammonia in your tap water is still throwing off your tests. I'm glad your axie is doing well.

Click to expand...

Thanks for reply

Right...
we got told they use trace amount of chloramine but we use http://uk.hagen.com/Aquatic/Watercare/Additives---Supplements/A7925 which says it gets rid of it.

Yes we age the water at least 24 hours, sometimes up to 28 hours.

Our tank is 65l

We use the fluval u1 filter with foam pad.

We currently have java moss and are waiting for some Lilaeopsis novaezelandiae to arrive soon.

Our nitrates have actually lowered since the nitrite went up and then down again

Thank you for taking such an interest. I really am grateful.

Sorry just noticed you are US...just converted 65 litres via google to us gallon and it says it is 17

Is it possible to get some seeding material from a cycled tank? It seems like your tank is still far from being cycled.

Could you post actual values when you test your water?

Once you start getting high amounts of nitrates then you are on the right track. It took 4weeks for my tank to cycle but i had seeding material. My 10gallon took 8weeks from fresh.

Once you see really high spikes in ammonia and nitrite you will be on your way.
Mind you it will take longer to cycle a tank with axies in because you cant let thr ammonia get to high. I cycled my 10gallon with no axies and my 25gallon with the seeding material it cycled so fast i never saw to big of a spike to remove my axies

To cycle, you have to have a little bit of ammonia. The trick is to balance your levels between "enough for bacteria" and "not enough to kill your axie". With your frequent water changes and plants in the tank, your ammonia source is disappearing before the bacteria have a chance to use it.

When cycling with an axolotl in the tank, it could take 8 weeks or more. With a heavily planted tank, you may never see ammonia levels.

I have just done a test and readings are

Nitrate:40 (never ever lower than this but that has been the issue all along with that)
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0.5

I have got rid of the poop, should I leave the water change until morning then to allow what ammonia there is to encourage bacterial growth?

Also alkylhalide we had our filter from another tank in with the ours for about a week and have kept an ornament from our established tank in the Axie tank for seeding :happy:

Kaysie said:

To cycle, you have to have a little bit of ammonia. The trick is to balance your levels between "enough for bacteria" and "not enough to kill your axie". With your frequent water changes and plants in the tank, your ammonia source is disappearing before the bacteria have a chance to use it.

When cycling with an axolotl in the tank, it could take 8 weeks or more. With a heavily planted tank, you may never see ammonia levels.

Click to expand...

I hate to say it but mine took 2 - 3 months with my axolotl in the tank. It felt like forever, but I added a small sponge filter towards the second month and it seemed to boost the bioload.

Hi, I'm in the same situation as Craigy. I'm three weeks into cycling a new 65L tank with 2 young axies and can't seem to get the ammonia down, and nitrates / nitrits are not going up.
I'm doing daily 1/4 water changes and adding StressZyme, and today did a big 1/2 water change. I'm only feeding every 2-3 days (even though its hard for me to ignore their imploring eyes and hand signals!).

Water readings:
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 7

The little guys seem happy enough. Should I do less water changes?

Hi Claire!

Your ammonia is dangerously high I believe! I'm also in week three of cycling my tank with two axy in it. My tank is slightly larger about 90litres of water in it at the moment.

My parameters are:

Ammonia: 0.2
Nitrite: 5
Ph 7.4

I haven't been bothering to test for nitrate yet as I was told nitrate readings can be affected by high nitrite and since I'm doing daily water changes to get the nitrite down the nitrates shouldn't be a problem.

My ammonia is just starting to come down so I'm hoping my nitrites will follow suit in the next week and my tank will complete the cycle! I'm struggling to get my nitrite down to a safer level for my axy atm and im doing 50% changes daily. On the upside, it means my cycle in getting there.

One thing that might be affecting your cycle in the cold. I read tanks can take longer to cycle in colder conditions which makes sense. If I was you I would try get that ammonia down to about 0.25 maximum. Ammonia is more toxic that nitrite so when this spikes in the next stage of the cycle it can be slightly higher but it's best to maintain a minimal amount if possible.

I am still a newbie at cycling tanks so if anything I've said is wrong, please more experienced members correct me. It's all a big learning curve! Good luck in your cycling hopefully it will start progressing soon for you

Thanks for the feedback again Jess!
Its really frustrating that the ammonia level won't go down. I hope Minxie and Gartha are ok. They look lovely and are pretty active. I hope your little guys are doing well too

I'll keep up the daily water changes and make them 50%. The water isn't too cold - around 18-20C. I'll see if the fish shop can give me some pebbles and water to help seed the tank with bacteria. I've used up nearly a whole bottle of StressZyme already...

Not pebbles!! Never keep axolotl on pebbles Sand is best. It is so very frustrating when you can't get levels down but eventually they will come down. STick to it and eventually you will succeed

You can suspend pebbles in a stocking in the water. They would be OK as long as the axolotl can't eat them. :happy:

My tank had taken months and still not completed cycling, so I took Mortimer out and kept him in a small tub (100% daily water changes). I put his poop in the cycling tank when I found it, and stopped doing water changes altogether. It finished cycling in a matter of a week or two. And saved me a lot of anxiety about him being in potentially dangerous water.

I had many many struggles when trying to cycle my tank both with and without my axie. I ended up testing the water twice a week rather than every day (not the safest, but I had established that I needed to do hefty water changes every day anyway) and changed about 5 gallons (from a 20 gallon tank) daily. Eventually all the numbers started lining up. My nitrite actually ended up dropping to 0 before my ammonia did, but everything eventually caught up. Once I realized my axie was doing fine even with the tank being funky, I stopped stressing, did what I had to, and just changed the water until I noticed the numbers working out. I also have an adult that seems incredibly hardy so it may be different if you have small juveniles which (not certain, just from observation) seem more fragile, but just figure out how much of water change works for your situation, do it daily, and it will happen.

I went back to the fish shop and they recommended two products:
"Stability" which has live bacteria for tank cycling (5ml per day for a week), and "Purigen" which is a pouch of absorbant beads to go in the filter and removes ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
They also insisted I stop feeding them for about a week (not sure if I can do that!).
The ammonia is already on the way down (0.5 now), so that's promising. Nitrites still zero.
My little guys are really active at the moment, swimming lots of laps and look so cute :happy:

StressZyme is what's driving up your ammonia. Stop using it. And skip all the rest of the junk the pet shop tries to sell you. They're just trying to sell you stuff. All most people need is a simple dechlorinator (if necessary).

Don't stop feeding them.

If you put Purigen in surely it will starve the bacteria of the food they need and your tank will never cycle? It's true they're trying to make money when cycles will happen naturally anyway.