Ammonia cycling

[Jerry1]

I need some advice. It seems the sponges I seeded in my main tank are not yet up to their full potential. My AC70 is packed with sponges and biomedia. I will be adding an actual sponge filter tonight but it is new so it won't provide immediate relief.

It looks like ammonia hits about 0.2 overnight and I have not seen it higher than that at the 24 hour mark. I've been doing 50-60% changes 1x per day, which basically removes enough to measure zero ammonia. This morning is when I discovered that ammonia builds up within 8-10 hrs so plan to start doing 2 changes per day. Maybe 40-50% each time. Do you folks agree with this plan??? Am I just prolonging the cycle?

PS - I am using PRIME. I add 2x the recommended dose during the change at night and I add a 1x dose of the tank volume again in the morning to keep the ammonia locked but I still don't like the fact that it is there.

[Sean Buehrle]

Fish in the tank ? If so I would remove the filter and run it in a bucket with ammonia till it builds up.

Rely on big waterchanges and little feeding till it's cycled.

That's the best way I can think of.

[Jerry1]

I'm familiar with the fishless cycle but that can also take a couple weeks. I would think by then that the cycle would be complete by continuing with my original posted plan, which also uses the large water changes you mentioned. The bacteria would still have ammonia available between changes. Or am I missing something?

I also gave it some more thought and I might pull some bio media out of my established tank and put it in an Ac50 I have to provide more bacteria. I could also put a stocking of my established gravel in there too. Another busy night ahead of me.

[walt3]

ah yes the joy of cycling! :) so glad im done. your heading in the right direction.

[Wes]

You may also try TETRA SAFE START I have used it. It helps in a pinch.

[Jerry1]

I usually start stocking slow and build up slowly. I've never had any ammonia but since I drove to Baltimore to get most of these fish and because I think it's best for cichlids to grow up together, I got all 8 within 4-5 wks. Pretty stressful.

I added an AC50 full of seeded Eheim biomedia and I added a 4x3x3" prefilter to the AC70 that is already on the tank. I did a 50% change to bring ammonia down to zero. I will see what it measures in the morning. I can try a stocking if gravel hanging on an intake if needed. If none of this works, I will have to look into other cycling aids. Thanks for the support so far.

[Jerry1]

Just an update. The extra seeded biomedia seems to have helped. There may have been unmeasurable ammonia this morning. Certainly below .1 but sometimes it's hard to detect such a minute color difference. Lighting an even how close you hold the tube to the chart can make a big difference. I will check again tonight before the next water change.

[Jerry1]

The extra bio media did it. No ammonia. I'm going to try 40% daily Changes in this grow out tank now instead of 50-60% changes and see how that goes.

[x2h]

congrats! i am in the middle of it. yesteday NH3 = 1 ppm and NO2 = 0 ppm, and today NH3 = 0.5 ppm and NO2 = 0.25 ppm. waiting for both to become 0 and NO3 to rise. old media definitely helps!