Fishless Cycle Issues

[guggas]

Im trying to do a fishless cycle on a new sump with poret foam sheets. I have other tanks that I could seed from that would speed up the cycle but I wanted to start fresh with a fishless cycle since this is my first discus tank and I'm not in a big hurry. I'm using Dr. Tims ammonia purchased on amazon. On day one i added about 1ppm of amonia, and added a dose of Seachem Stability thinking it may speed the cycle. My understanding is that ammonia should stay in there until it gets converted to Nitrite. Ammonia does not just evaporate, can it? A few days later i checked the ammonia and it was down to about 0.25 ppm. I was thinking wow things are going Fast. I added ammonia up to 2 ppm and tested it about 2 days later and it was at zero, but I'm still not reading any Nitrite or Nitrate.

Last night I added a solid 2-3ppm of ammonia and this morning I cant detect any ammonia, its really driving me nuts. No Nitrites or Nitrates. i am noticing alot of white buildup on my hoses and alot of flaky white substance in the water. I'm wondering if somehow I got a bad batch of ammonia, I may buy some Ace Hardware ammonia today and try to move forward with that. At this point I'm about 20 days into the attempted fish less cycle. Where the heck is the ammonia going?

[Akili]

How old is your test kit ?

[guggas]

Its the API master kit, and I bought it about 6 months ago. It seems to work ok on my established tank. Also I tried adding a drop of my ammonia directly into the test tube and it turns pure green when i do that.

[DJW]

I would get some from the hardware store, then test for ammonia 15 minutes after adding it and see what you get.

[ssevasta]

Be very careful buying ammonia from a hardware store because a lot of the time they add other chemicals called surficants that are toxic. I would buy another test kit and try dosing upto 4ppm before you go and buy more ammonia. You should also know that if u seed the filter you'll be introducing any bacteria or parasites that might be living in your other tanks. There's plenty of nasty stuff that other fish can tolerate but it will decimate a discus tank. That's why a lot of discus keepers will buy all their fish at one time and then never add anything else to their tanks.

[DJW]

~Ace is the Place~ where they have the good stuff. If you shake the bottle and it foams, don't use it.

Is there an update? I'm wondering if the Tim's ammonia was weak, or if it was the test kit.

[Davidzil]

Wait if you are using Dr. Tims the one and only and his ammonia your readings will be off.
In some cases you will be cycled in under a week.
You should check his site the info is there.
There is no need to add anything else, just follow the instructions.
http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resour...shless-cycling

Keep an eye on your PH readings, shouldn't get below 6.5

by the way sometimes your really have to shake the nitrate part 2 with APT test kit, for several minutes to get the readings.

[guggas]

~Ace is the Place~ where they have the good stuff. If you shake the bottle and it foams, don't use it.

Is there an update? I'm wondering if the Tim's ammonia was weak, or if it was the test kit.

For those wanting an update: After about 30 days of waiting for a Nitrite or Nitrate reading, I did a 100% water change and lightly rinsed the sponges (the water had gotten very slimy). I added in some Ace Ammonia up to about 4ppm, and about two days later I had my first Nitrite reading, and Nitrites have rapidly risen since then so I think its working well now. I'm not sure what the issue was, maybe my water had gotten too nasty, or maybe it was the original dose of Seachem Stability that messed it up, or maybe the Tims Ammonia was bad. Maybe it helped that I added 4ppm at once (that was the most I had added at once). For clarification: I had not used Tims "one and only", just his Ammonia.

[pitdogg2]

I would of just used the one and only and been done with it. it works well.

[DISCUS STU]

I recently nuked (bleached out) my 29 gal. Eheim 2015 canister breeder tank and restarted with a little clear Austin's ammonia and some Microbe Lift PL (Pond).

After a few days of changing water at 50% daily until my ph tests went from dark green (high ammonia) to light green and then strong yellow (0 ammonia) I put the new breeders in. No problem. The whole thing took about 7-8 days from start to finish.

Right now I'm waiting for the two of them to get down to it.

[DJW]

Sometimes the bottled bacteria works great with ammonia but leaves a nitrite spike that lingers for another week.