little trouble cycling my 10gl

fish_4_all

Well you just have to wait and see. I am not an advocate for using cycle but some people swear by it. It sounds like you have a pretty good grasp on the whole process so you should be in pretty good shape. Just make sure to check your levels and maybe even keep some sort of documentation on how the cycle goes to let others know.

gRuNg3b0y

Sure will try to do that

herefishy

The key word to remember when starting up any aquarium is patience, I know you feel like a lonely vulture and want to kill something, but just hang on and have patience.

gRuNg3b0y

It's been over a month since I'm cycling my 10 gal and still no results. (ammonia 5.0ppm Nitrite 0ppm) I used Janitorial strength as my ammonia source, and as for bacteria, I used "Stability" and it didn't do anything.

Right now I'm using "Cycle" for about two and half weeks now, not sure if any of you heard of it, because that's how my cycle started when I first bought the tank and had no clue how cycle works. So I'm giving it a shot if will work this time..

And I wanted to add what's the longest time you cycled your tank??

Holly

NNOOOOOO....don't do it! I had to cycle my tank with fish since I upgrades and had no where for them to go. Anyway, I used Cycle but ammonia got really high so I had to do something so my fish wouldn't die. I got Stability and it saved my fish but threw my numbers way off for a long time. I was getting reading off the wall and the reason was the Stability changed the ammomia to something less toxic to fish but the tank still took 8 weeks to cycle.

Holly

My ammoina showed a 8.0ppm for 7 weeks. One day it just dropped and my nitrites were high. Sit tight..you've got a long read ahead of you and all your levels will be wild till the ride ends.

fish_4_all

I am using ammonia to cycle one of tanks right now. First site of nitrites in 3 weeks, 8 days later I still have high nitrites and very low nitrates. Is just a patience game. My cycle should be done in about 2 weeks for a total of 6-7 weeks. I didn't expect it to be done that fast.

The only thing that I can think of is that the janorial strength ammonia might have something else in it and could be killing the bacteria. I used regular household ammonia with no perfumes and my levels drop to 0 in less than 24 hours after adding 6-8 drops a day. Just to make sure, shake it hard and if there are any bubbles that don't pop right away but linger a lot longer then there might be something else in there.

Longest cycle I have had; 3 months, 2 weeks and 4 days.

gRuNg3b0y

I shook the bottle, literally as hard as I can, and no foam came; bubbles yeah but it popped right away. As for ammonia source it's really hard to find some here since most has surfactants. Janitorial strength in the other hand contains no phosphates, whatever that means, Well I don't mind the long wait I just wanted to make sure if I'm doing my cycle right.

gRuNg3b0y

You mean the fish cannot swim freely because of the filtration??

fish_4_all

It looks like you are doing everything right to me. I wouldn't use the other product but many swear by them so if it works for you so be it.

Keep up the good works and keep asking questions. It will cycle eventually and then we can move on to the fun stuff.