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29 gallon tank still not cycling after 5 days

20K views 83 replies 9 participants last post by  gzarr 
#1 ·
Hey, I got a 29 gallon tank for Christmas and set it up the same day. I had heard about fishless cycling before, but I have never used it. I put fish food in to put in ammonia and turned up the heat to about 82 degrees F. I didn't leave the light on, but I turned it on today. Today I got back from a 4 day trip to my grandparents' house. I checked the nitrite and nitrate. Both were at 0. Then I checked the ammonia. It was also 0. There is decaying fish food at the bottom of my tank. When I put in some decorations I got for Christmas at my grandparents' house, all the decaying, fungus covered food got stirred up. So I scooped most of it out with my net and put in some new food. Should I just go to the store and buy some pure ammonia to put in my tank? I thought the bacteria in the tank would have converted some of the ammonia to nitrite by today, but there's not even any ammonia in my tank! What happened? I added some Stress-zyme (beneficial bacteria in a bottle) to my tank today, I hope that helps. My tank is cloudy, so shouldn't there be some ammonia or nitrite or nitrate?
 
#2 ·
Did you have the filter running on the tank while you were away? this is where the bacteria will begin to develop. With fish food method. you should add a small pinch of fish food each day or every other day just as though you were feeding a small group of fish. Perhaps a little less than a dime size amount of food. The fuzz you saw on the food was the food breaking down and bacteria beginning to to feed on it. The process of maturing or (cycling) takes time and raw ammonia method is no quicker or at least that's been my expierience. Will take however long it takes. Be sure not to replace or clean the filter material during the next three to four weeks. If filter material becomes clogged up, you are putting too much food in the tank. When and if filter material needs cleaned in ALL aquariums (cycled)or not,, it should be cleaned in old aquarium water you take out or dechlorinated water.
Do you have any friends with aquariums up and running? borrowing some of their filter material and putting it in your filter ,will speed the process along. be sure and keep the borrowed filter material wet in aquarium water during the transfer from friends tank to yours. If you don't have accesss to borrowed material... Then be patient and the process will proceed. I am not a fan of bacteria in a bottle products and don't use them so cannot comment on benefits of using them other than to say they may, or may not, provide any benefit.
 
#3 ·
I have another tank and used some of the substrate from that tank to seed my new tank. I thought the more ammonia, the more bacteria, so the more bio-load (fish) could be handled, so I put in more fish food. My filter has not been changed but is starting to get a little clogged. Should I get some of the filter material from my other tank and put it in the filter? The tanks are different sizes and so are the filters, so I could just put the filter material in alongside the other things. I use Aqueon things, so I have an Aqueon Power Filter 30 on my tank.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Yes ,is what I would do. Squeezing the filter material from other tank into new tank is not nearly as erffective as placing a portion of the borrowed filter material in the new tank. Do it quickly so the borrowed material does not dry out. I would take the filter material from the established tank and place it in the new tank's filter compartment and then replace what I borrowed from the other tank with new material so long as that tank has been running for longer than a few weeks,there should be no problems.
I would test daily for ammonia and nitrites. when they both read zero for five or six days straight,THEN it will be safe to add a few fish slowly to the new tank.
 
#4 ·
Just stop your filter on the other tank for a min, take the sponges out, squish them out real nice in the new tank to get all the 'muck' into the new tank and place the sponges back in your old tank.
That's the safest and best way to get bacteria into your new tank real quick. After that you will more likely then not not see any NO's peaks.

Give it a few days and start stocking the new tank slowly (keep eye on water parameters thou to be safe!)
 
#6 ·
Ok, I'm scared...
I went to the store and bought some pure ammonia today, and tried to get a good amount of it in the tank - about 10 teaspoons. The source online that I had said you couldn't be sure how much to put in because you didn't know the concentration of the ammonia. So I googled it again, and two sites I found said add 3-5 drops!!! I put in 10 teaspoons! The original site said to test the water after adding it until the reading was 5.0 ppm, but my reading is still 0. I think the testing kit I bought isn't working right. Now I only have one test left, and I'm probably going to get a live action tester to put in the tank. Should I do a water change to get some of the ammonia out, or wait for a while to let the bacteria grow on it?

Just stop your filter on the other tank for a min, take the sponges out, squish them out real nice in the new tank to get all the 'muck' into the new tank and place the sponges back in your old tank.
That's the safest and best way to get bacteria into your new tank real quick. After that you will more likely then not not see any NO's peaks.
Dang... I looked in my other filter before reading this and found it infested with either algae or muck. I threw the cartridge away and rinsed off the other things in the filter with muck on them! :-(

And I'm thinking about trying to have a planted tank... Anything a pleco won't eat? Or do they only graze bulbs? I got some bulbs and tried to grow them but my pleco kept grazing down all the little sprouts. I would like plants that grow in gravel and plants that grow on driftwood.
 
#8 ·
Ok, I'm scared...
I went to the store and bought some pure ammonia today, and tried to get a good amount of it in the tank - about 10 teaspoons. The source online that I had said you couldn't be sure how much to put in because you didn't know the concentration of the ammonia. So I googled it again, and two sites I found said add 3-5 drops!!! I put in 10 teaspoons! The original site said to test the water after adding it until the reading was 5.0 ppm, but my reading is still 0. I think the testing kit I bought isn't working right. Now I only have one test left, and I'm probably going to get a live action tester to put in the tank. Should I do a water change to get some of the ammonia out, or wait for a while to let the bacteria grow on it?


Dang... I looked in my other filter before reading this and found it infested with either algae or muck. I threw the cartridge away and rinsed off the other things in the filter with muck on them! :-(

And I'm thinking about trying to have a planted tank... Anything a pleco won't eat? Or do they only graze bulbs? I got some bulbs and tried to grow them but my pleco kept grazing down all the little sprouts. I would like plants that grow in gravel and plants that grow on driftwood.
Okay, if you decide to go planted, good idea. Then you can sort of start over? (someone help me out here...would a new substrate be needed to support plant growth or does regular gravel do the trick?). I would research before getting the pleco...I have a bristlenose pleco in my 29 gallon and he is SO gentle with my plants, even when he pushes his way through them and has his whole mouth wrapped around them, he never harms them. I love him for that! But I say do your research so that you don't end up with a variety of pleco that will outgrow your 29 gallon tank. My bristlenose is by far my favorite thing in the tank, as everyone who has ever heard me talk about him would know.

As far as cleaning things off, it's often a good idea (especially at first) to leave things as is so you don't destroy what little bacteria may have formed on your decor, etc. Also, I always use treated water on whatever I'm washing off (I rarely need to wash anything off anyway) because I don't want trace amounts of chlorine or chloramine to get in the tank. For now, you may just not need to do any "cleaning". Let the bacteria do it for you.

As far as getting the ammonia levels up...that amount of ammonia seems really excessive. I am also doing a fishless cycle on a 10 gallon right now and i'm on about day 4. I know my tap has about .5 ppm of ammonia, but I added a good size pinch of food every morning and it already raised it to 1ppm. I also, like you, raised my temp. I used a lot of food to "jump start" the decaying process. And I'm leaving all of the decaying food at the bottom because that's the whole point...you want it to decay so it turns into ammonia, and you want to do this before adding fish so that your ammonia levels can peak withpout worrying about ammonia poisoning your fish. Then, once the ammonia and nitrites go down, I'll do a good gravel vaccuum and water change and if my levels are still at zero (amm and nitrite) then I'll add fish. If you decide to add fish before the cycle is complete, just remember to test your water every day, do water changes when ammonia is traceable, and I'd suggest using a live bacteria like Safe Start or Stability.

Sorry for all that! I know it can be frustrating waiting for the cycling. But if you decide to get plants, at least you'll have something beautiful to take care of while you wait for the other living inhabitants of your tank!
 
#7 ·
I pers never went with this approach but 10 spoons on 29g just really sounds like a lot.

What are you testing with, strips or liquid kit?
Any chance you can take a sample water by your LFS and have them test Ammonia for ya?

Pleco will eat anything such as algae, cucumber, algae waffers...or like in your case bulbs :)
 
#9 ·
All substrate-rooted plants will grow fine in regular gravel, preferably the smallest grain size (1-2 mm) and this plain regular gravel is what I have used for more than 20 years. Make sure it is inert, not the special gravels made from calcareous rock that will add mineral to the water and raise hardness and pH; these gravels are for marine tanks and rift lake cichlids and possibly livebearers.

Anubias, Java Fern, Java Moss are plants that will attach to driftwood; they do not root in the substrate but once attached the roots from the rhizome (Anubias, JF) will grow on the wood or rock they are attached to. And no fish that I know of will eat these plants, they are too tough. Good substrate-rooted plants would be any of the swords (Echinodorus species) that are also quite strong.

If you are going with live plants, I would buy them and plant the tank and forget the ammonia and fishless cycling stuff. Plants growing in a tank will handle the ammonia produced by a few fish right from day one and there will be no "cycle" or new tank syndrome. I can explain further if you're interested. I have set up dozens of planted tanks over the years and added fish the first day and never had any of them "cycle."

Byron.
 
#10 ·
If you are going with live plants, I would buy them and plant the tank and forget the ammonia and fishless cycling stuff. Plants growing in a tank will handle the ammonia produced by a few fish right from day one and there will be no "cycle" or new tank syndrome. I can explain further if you're interested. I have set up dozens of planted tanks over the years and added fish the first day and never had any of them "cycle."

Byron.
Byron I know you mentioned this in another thread about planted tanks and their ability to handle the ammonia from day one. I have a question about this...I just set up a new 10 gallon which I've been cycling with fish food, and seeding from my other tank, for about four or five days now. I set it up and planted 1 anubias, 4 kyoto grass (very small), a few small valisneria from my old tank, and three or four small swords. I wouldn't consider it "heavily planted" yet How many plants do you think I would need to support the ammonia/nitrite load during the cycling. My ammonia has gone from .5ppm (tap water level) to 1ppm since yesterday. My plants in my 29 gallon definitely do the job of keeping the nitrate down, never has gone above 5ish.

Thanks
 
#12 ·
@ Steph, the kyoto grass you're referring to thrives best in harder water (not soft like I have here). I had it in one of my previous 20g set up and its a VERY slow growing plant, def slower then any Anubias I ever had.

I had best success in adding fast growers to new set ups, anything you like really, just in your case (like my new set up) its helpful to chose something that's gonna stay relatively small, being a 10g. Dep on what exactly you wanna stock in there, Pennywort also make a great floater plant and its fast growing.
 
#13 ·
I love Pennywort, I'll look for some of that. I've never had it before. I just added some Java Fern hoping the bigger leaves will absorb more nutrients.

The kyoto grass was from the Petsmart brand live plants. They sell them in these gel packs and out of the four I purchased, two were actually not good aquatic plants (I, as usual, researched AFTER I already bought them) so I returned them and got an amazon sword. We'll see if the Petsmart plants survive. But I think I'm done buying from them for now. I'll try online since my LFS is dry in the plant arena lately.

And about the vallisneria, I'll add more so the ammonia goes bye-bye more rapidly.
 
#14 ·
Heck at the rate mine is going (again I should have known better) give it few more weeks and i'll mail some your way to get rid of it lol.
I never tried plants from them, look at the once and left lol, I been using sweetaquatics to stock all new tanks with plants now.
 
#16 ·
I already have the pleco... I've had it for about half a year. That was my first impulse buy. And I have regretted it. I could have a nice planted tank, but that pleco eats everything. He hides during the day and comes out at night, but will dart back to his little hiding spot in the back if anyone comes up to the aquarium. The only good thing about him is that I never have to clean the aquarium walls for algae!:-D It's a common pleco, so it will get pretty big. I've tried to sell it, but there's a really low quality pet store in my town where they trade them for other fish. It's a bad place, but they have a lot of exotic species that you can only find there, unless you want to buy them online. Anyway, all my potential buyers say they can just trade in one of their unwanted fish for one. I'm close to just giving mine away and getting an albino bristlenose pleco, which will not get as big.
 
#17 ·
Even with a pleco, there's plenty of plants you can have that the pleco will not harm :)
 
#20 ·
Back to the main topic this thread was started on... I'm getting nitrate readings, but never any nitrite. I don't know what's happening to the ammonia. Wouldn't 10 teaspoons of ammonia, when converted into nitrate, be a huge amount? I'm just getting traces. I don't think my aquarium is cycling right... What's happening?
 
#22 ·
No, there was no reading. I think the kit I got was messed up. I was going to go to Petsmart today to get a live action meter, but it was new year's day, so they closed early.
 
#23 ·
I just set up a 29 gallon and within 2 days all my levels were perfect. No fish in yet. I just rinsed rocks, decorations and live plants off in filtered water, added the water and conditioner, which is usually 1/2 tsp/gallon (leaving enough room to transfer water and fish) and kept filter running (I also turned the light off and on for plants). Easy as that. I know this works because I have a little 2.5 gallon with a betta (same set up) and a 5 gallon with a dwarf pleco and 6 danios. They all swim around happy as clams in the sand.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Do you have a nitrate reading? How did you cycle it? Seeding or food or pure amm?

Freddy--IMHO I would wait to add fish till you get a nitrate reading. My 10 gallon got a nitrite reading today after I guess about 5 days of cycling with fish food. I know you upped your temp (82, like me, right?) and used fish food. I dumped about 10 fish flakes the first morning and night, and about 10-20 every morning since then. I know it's a lot, but I want to make sure I have more bacteria than I'll need for the fish so when I introduce them they will be supported. So again IMHO if I were doing a 20 gallon I'd add like three times (fellow members might be cringing at this). I also don't mind some deteriorating food in there to fertilize my plants, since there's no fish in there.

From experience, when you add fish before you cycle, it's stressful because say you get a .5 ammonia reading with fish in there, I always worry about the fish.

And yes, please get a new test kit. Use the drops, not the test strips. Dropper test kits tend to be more accurate (API sells good ones and they last a long time so the price is spread out over time).

Good luck, fellow cycler : )
 
#24 ·
Day 8, and still no nitrites or nitrates.:-? Today I WILL get an ammonia monitor to see if there's even any ammonia. But if the reading is no ammonia, what should I do? Is it safe to add fish? My alkalinity, hardness, and ph have finally balanced out, but I don't want to kill a fish because there's ~10 teaspoons of pure ammonia in the tank! During the past couple of days, I've put in 1 teaspoon of ammonia every day. I just put some in, so something must be wrong if the ammonia monitor reads 0.
 
#25 ·
Too late to edit, but I just read my other message and it looks like I already have the monitor and it reads 0. Just to be clear, I don't have the monitor yet. I'll keep you posted on how it goes when I put in the monitor!:)
 
#27 ·
And the reading is... :shock::shock::shock: MORE THAN 8.0 ppm! OFF THE CHARTS! :-?I'll have to do a huge water change to keep the bacteria from using some sort of reverse feedback mechanism I read about. I'll try changing some of the water and see if it begins cycling in a few days. All I needed was a liquid kit!:p I never liked them because they were so expensive, but now I see that they have (mine has) about 100 tests in them! Well, I have to go fix the aquarium. Thanks for suggesting liquid kits, stephanieleah!
 
#28 ·
After a 75% water change, the reading is now 7.0-8.0 ppm. I won't add any ammonia for a few days, and hopefully the bacteria will change that into nitrite! Thanks everyone!:)
 
#29 ·
You NO2 is 8 :shock: that's one heck of a kit to measure that far up....uhm i'd strongly suggest a super large w/c asap, right now tonight, that's not just not a lil not good for fish...but like real bad...dang

You're cycling with fish right? (just so I'm not getting stuff mixed up again here)
 
#30 · (Edited)
nope. pure ammonia, with decorations and a bubbler. I keep the lights on most of the time, but I'm having a little algae grow in my tank. If I treat the algae, I have to remove my filter cartridge, but if I do that, I lose a little bit of my bacteria. But there's still some on the filter plates, which are meant to hold the bacteria.
 
#31 ·
I'd use a regular light schedule not only to treat the algae problem (they'll thrive with excessive light) and also so your plants acclimate to a regular and more natural schedule. I'm sure the benefits of this would be better outlined by more knowledgeable folks on here, but I've had it explained to me when I wanted to leave lights on overnight because my plants love it, but they just appear to love it. It's like giving them crack.

Algae will use what the plants don't, nutrients and lighting. May be a good idea especially if you have a timer for your lights, to do 5 hours on, a few hours off, and 5 hours on, then nighttime. This inhibits the algae's photosynthetic process.

The algae...is it brown? could be from the excessive ammonia. The plants will also help by using the ammonia.

And it's not really my business but I feel so relieved that you finally got an ammonia reading. That was really odd that it was testing at zero after adding all that ammonia!

I bet you get a nitrite reading in the next couple of days. If not, just buy some live bacteria. Or seed from your 10 gallon tank (that's what I did and I got a nitrite reading within one day)/:lol:
 
#33 ·
The lights should never be on full time. Use a timer and have a schedule. Plants will eventually burn out (die) from constant light, and it does not help the bacteria that need oxygen to grow not light (how else would they live inside a dark filter?).

New tanks take time to establish a biological equilibrium; doing strange things with lights, chemicals, etc. is only prolonging the issue because it prevents the equilibrium from establishing. And algae is common in such situations and should be left alone to work through; all this fussing worsens it.

Byron.
 
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