Still struggling to get tank cycled after more than two months

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2006-05-08, Altum wrote:
Frederick B. Henry Jr. wrote:

Should I just be patient or what? Why am I not seeing the ammonia drop
if there is nitrite *and* nitrate present?

What water conditioner and ammonia test are you using? Ammonia bound by
AmQuel, Prime, Ammo-Lock, and similar chloramine treatments registers on
many test kits as free ammonia.


I use Tetra AquaSafe as a water conditioner. I have the Aquarium
Pharmaceuticals test kit that has pH, High pH, Ammonia, nitrite, and
nitrate tests (4 test tubes). I also have some dip stick tests (forget
the brand, but the dip stick also does GH and KH). The ammonia has
never gone over 2 ppm. The nitrite is only just shading over 0.25 ppm.
Nitrate is always at 5 ppm. When the ammonia approches 2 ppm I do a
water change. Feed sparingly, as I said. I am at a loss...

Fred

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFEX6vKJXD4LJUXJmMRAnmcAJ9h5nUPPM94wbSGk5DL/eaXyq4xHgCfThlS
Ap3Co7R+0ckSxqlW5CMzoyU=
=BfYO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after." --Alphonse Allais

Frederick B. Henry Jr. wrote:

I use Tetra AquaSafe as a water conditioner. I have the Aquarium
Pharmaceuticals test kit that has pH, High pH, Ammonia, nitrite, and
nitrate tests (4 test tubes). I also have some dip stick tests (forget
the brand, but the dip stick also does GH and KH). The ammonia has
never gone over 2 ppm. The nitrite is only just shading over 0.25 ppm.
Nitrate is always at 5 ppm. When the ammonia approches 2 ppm I do a
water change. Feed sparingly, as I said. I am at a loss...

Forgot one other thing - do you have chlorine or chloramine? Here's
what might be happening...

Cloramine = ammonia + chlorine. Treat with normal dechlor, and you end
up with quite a bit of free ammonia. Water conditioners designed for
chloramines like AquaSafe, Ammo-Lock, Prime, and AmQuel react with the
ammonia to make it nontoxic. This causes two problems:

1) The bound ammonia may not be available to feed filter bacteria.
Kordon is the only manufacturer who has actually tested to be sure
bacteria can break down the bound ammonia. I don't use other products
in cycling tanks.

2) You can get spurious ammonia test readings. AP states that its
MasterTest ammonia kit will test positive in the presence of AP
Ammo-Lock bound ammonia. Kordon's AmQuel and AmQuel+ react directly
with Nessler ammonia reagents and cause a high false positive reading
with or without ammonia. (Salicylate kits change is yellow to
greenish-yellow with increasing ammonia. Nessler kits go from clear to
orange-yellow.)

I use plain AmQuel and AP's Dry Tab kit and get reasonable ammonia
readings. You could also try switching to Tetra's ammonia kit since
Tetra claims it's compatible with AquaSafe.

--
Put the word aquaria in the subject to email me.
Did you read the FAQ? http://faq.thekrib.com

"Frederick B. Henry Jr." wrote in message
...
Feed sparingly, as I said. I am at a loss...
===============
Feeding them *sparingly* could be causing stress for fish after 2 months.
Excessive food and fish waste doesn't seem to be causing your problem.
--
Koi-Lo....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö ~~~~ }((((({*

I live in Madison, WI and can sympathize with your rock hard water. A
10 gal tank is pretty small for most African cichlids, but they thrive
in my 54 gal corner tank. You might post a few questions to:

http://www.cichlidforum.com/

asking what species would work for a 10 gal tank.

What type of filtration are you using? The benefical bacteria will
grow in your gravel and on your ornaments, but they will be abundant in
a good sponge filter or bio wheel. I had a 2 gal tank with a UGF and
it took quite a while to cycle - eventually the LFS squeezed the
contents of one of his filters into a bag for me and I finally got the
bugger cycled.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2006-05-09, ClownPleco wrote:
I live in Madison, WI and can sympathize with your rock hard water. A
10 gal tank is pretty small for most African cichlids, but they thrive
in my 54 gal corner tank. You might post a few questions to:

http://www.cichlidforum.com/

asking what species would work for a 10 gal tank.

What type of filtration are you using? The benefical bacteria will
grow in your gravel and on your ornaments, but they will be abundant in
a good sponge filter or bio wheel. I had a 2 gal tank with a UGF and
it took quite a while to cycle - eventually the LFS squeezed the
contents of one of his filters into a bag for me and I finally got the
bugger cycled.


A Whisper Bio-Filter. The readings today we ammonia between 1 - 2
ppm, nitrite approaching 0.5 ppm and nitrate approaching 10 ppm. So the
nitrite and nitrate do seem to be climbing whereas the ammonia is
definitely not spiking. Just seems to be taking an awful long time.

I fed the fish and then did a 25% water change.

Cheers,

Fred
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFEYNCDJXD4LJUXJmMRAigqAJ9nEYWRwI6q4MC/xEb6whEEG9cl2wCfXDnB
MomfmRfKCxgJ4/vvtUAQ2Zk=
=iY1Z
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after."
--Alphonse Allais

Fred wrote,
Just seems to be taking an awful long time...
I fed the fish and then did a 25% water change...

Sounds like what is called 'a never ending cycle'. Happens (sometimes)
with a fishless cycle when ammonia is added everyday (feeding the
filter). Stop adding ammonia every day (stop feeding the fish). Your
nitrites should drop to 0 and end the cycle within a week to 10
days.............. Frank