Struggling With Cycling

Hi LizFish 

Yes, you have gone a bit wrong, I'm afraid. Have you been following the method on here, and misunderstood what I wrote?

With the method on here, you add enough ammonia to get 3 ppm then wait. And if the cycle goes anything like mine did, you wait some more, and then some more. At first you test every third day and only add more ammonia when the ammonia reading is less than 0.75 and the nitrite reading is over 2 ppm.

The problem with adding too much ammonia is that it gets turned into rather a lot of nitrite, and at levels over about 15 ppm it inhibits the growth of the nitrite eating bacteria. But our test kits can't measure that high; once the level reaches the highest colour on the chart it still reads as that highest colour. We could have 50 ppm nitrite and it would still show as the highest colour of the tester.

But all is not lost. With 55 litres it is fairly easy to remove all the water (I had a 50 litre tank until recently). What I suggest you do it a total water change, don't forget the dechlorinator and warm the replacement water as cold tap water is very cold at this time of year. Switch everything back on and let it run half an hour then test for ammonia. You won't be able to get all the water out so you may have a small reading for ammonia. The next step is to add enough ammonia to get the reading up to 3 ppm - don't forget to allow for any ammonia still in there.
Because you will most likely have grown some ammonia eating bacteria, I suggest you test every second day for ammonia and nitrite rather than every third day. You are looking for the day that your ammonia is less than 0.75 and nitrite above 2.0. This will mean you are at stage #6 of the method on here.
When I cycled a sponge filter for my betta's tank earlier this year I got to this stage on day 28. Since it is 3 weeks since you first added ammonia, it should not be much longer till you are at stage #6; you might even be there already. The test results 2 days after refilling the tank and adding ammonia will tell you.





You say your nitrate is at 80 ppm. Can I ask, are you using liquid tests or strips? And if it is liquid tests, are you shaking one of the nitrate reagent bottles till your arm falls off? All liquid testers have one bottle that needs to be shaken really well or they give false results. This is because one chemical in the bottle settles out and all the shaking is needed to redissolve it.

Nitrates are the least accurate of our tests - it needs expensive lab equipment for real accuracy.

In the UK we are allowed up to 50 ppm in drinking water. But your 80 ppm is a lot higher than that so either it is a false test or you do have some nitrite eating bacteria turning nitrite into nitrate.
The simple way to tell is to test the nitrate of both your tap water and your tank water and compare them to each other - before you do the water change  . If they are the same colour, whatever the actual reading, there are no nitrite eaters yet and all the nitrate is from your tap water. But if your tank level is higher than your tap level, the nitrate must be coming from somewhere and unless you are adding plant fertiliser, the only place it can be coming from is bacteria making it.

Do you have another tank? If you do and it's been running a while, all you need to do is steal some media from that tank's filter - up to a third - and put in the cycling tank's filter.


I'm curious - how do you get a reading of 0.25 for nitrate? Mine goes from 0 to 5 and all I can say is between those colours 

I've seen those on-line, though I have the API ones.

The best brand is Salifert. They cost about the same to buy but do fewer tests. Their nitrate tester is supposed to be more accurate because Salifert use powders rather than liquids.

I don't even have a nitrate tester at the moment. I do have pH ammonia and nitrite though 

@LizFish You could if you wanted but I think the cycle has completed ! Perhaps if you are unsure add 1ppm - which is a maintenance level if you cant stock immediately then check tomorrow. If both are at 0ppm them check for NitrAtes, do a water change to drop nitrate to around 20ppm AND GO BUY FISH !!!!!

Oh, how exciting.