Empty Tank Syndrome! 😢

[Eric R]

I second the suggestion to add some snails as enjoyable critters for your current tank as well as future cleanup crew for any larger tanks. The problem with ghost feeding a tank is that you have to wait for the food to breakdown into ammonia and other compounds for the cycling bacteria to process. It can work though. Having critters like snails help to add some life to the tank, as well as the consume food and produce waste that can be more quickly used by the cycling bacteria.

I'll add again (though it's been said a few times), buy some lives plants if you can and get them started in your current tank, don't wait until you get the larger tank. This is helpful for a couple reasons. 1) It allows you to gain experience keeping plants without also having to worry about learning to keep fish. Keeping healthy plants helps in keeping healthy fish. Plants will actually use ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. 2) Your tank looks better with live plants! Also something fun to do until you get more fish. 3) Plants are an excellent surface for beneficial bacteria. If you buy plants from cycled tanks, they will bring beneficial bacteria with them. 4) If you buy plants for your smaller tank, they will grow and possibly reproduce so that once you have a larger tank you won't have to spend more money for a larger amount of plants!

One thing to be aware of with live plants is that since they will use ammonia and nitrite as well as nitrate, it can sometimes be hard to tell how much ammonia is being used up by your plants directly versus being converted by bacteria into nitrate, since you may never detect much nitrate with a small bioload and enough plants.

[Eric R]

Also, @Irene made a great series of videos documenting experiments with different cycling methods. You can find them here:

 

[Irene]

If you're interested, we also have a blog post on aquarium cycling on the Aquarium Co-Op website as well: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/fish-tank-cycling

[Apple Cory]

@ererer Hi, thank you. I actually have already watched them, very helpful.

[Apple Cory]

@Irenethank you for the link.

As mentioned in the blog, I agree, fishless cycling is very difficult for beginners. I'm really struggling. I have zero ammonia, extremely high Nitrites and zero nitrates. I've been feeding the tank like it has fish in it, doing water changes, but nothing seems to change even after 3 weeks without my fish in it. My tank temp is at 21°C.

I've already killed 4 fish.

Should I add some plants and a couple of snails, or add ammonia now or should I just empty the tank completely, clean it and start again?

Thank you to everyone who has been hoping me! 

[Barrie]

For me setting up a 29 gallon during covid and after being out of the hobby for 15 years the key was buying live plants from a local aquarist. There was cycled water on the plants and in the bags they came in, everything went into the new tank. This sped up the process and my first fish were a trio of guppies. More fish were add about three weeks later. You have to be patient. Nice to be back in the hobby though.

[Dbentley]

Have you tested the water you are using to refill your tank to see if it is supplying the nitrates. Some locations have a high nitrate content in the potable water. If you don't know it's worth a check.