My tank isn't cycling after 3 months and I don't know what to do

[Jeklabo]

Hello everyone, I really need some help. About 3 months ago, I decided to completely re-scape my 20 long with new plants, hardscape, and substrate while keeping the fish I already had. I removed my fish, emptied the tank, and started over. The tank came out really nice but it's been problematic.

I knew that I would run the risk of completely losing my cycle if I did this, so I made sure to re-use the same 2 filters (and I didn't clean them so they were still nice and dirty and covered in bacteria) from before, I re-used some of the plants from the previous setup, I re-used a couple of the rocks from the previous setup, and I re-used about half of the water too. I took as many steps as I could to ensure that I would be carrying over as much of my cycle as possible, and even added bottled bacteria just to be sure. 

The new tank has a ton of new plants that have been growing extremely well, and it has more surfaces than my previous setup did for bacteria to grow on. There was an algae bloom during the first couple weeks of the new setup and I cleaned up most of it but I still left a good amount of the algae alone. 

My problem is that every time I test the water the ammonia is always around 2.0 ppm, and the Nitrite and Nitrate always sits at 0. the pH of the water is between 6.0 and 6.4. The tank is currently stocked with:

6 Black Phantom Tetras

6 Skunk Corydoras

1 Honey Gourami

3 Nerite Snails

None of my fish appear to be in poor health due to the water quality, thankfully, but I don't know what to do anymore. Initially, I tried doing 25-40% water changes every other day, but the ammonia would always rise again the next day. Then, I tried waiting around a week between water changes to see if that would help (but not any longer since I don't want my fish to be swimming in 2.0 ppm ammonia water for too long) and that didn't work either. I added an entire brand new bottle of bacteria over the course of a two weeks, and it made no difference. I always use water conditioner (Prime and sometimes Stress Coat) when I add water to the tank. 

I'm at a complete loss. I did my homework and took steps to ensure that I was doing everything right and I just have absolutely no idea what the problem can be. I'm thinking that maybe the plants have something to do with it but I couldn't find any answers anywhere. I would really appreciate some advice, I feel so bad having my fish swim around in such ammonia-filled water at all hours of the day.

[DaveO]

Is the new substrate releasing the ammonia? If so, you will just have to keep up with water changes. I can't remember the brands that release ammonia but I'm sure others here will know. Everything you did setting up the new scape sounded good for keeping your cycle.

[Katie B.]

I set up my first 29-gallon tank two weeks ago and have nitrite levels between 1-5 and ammonia levels at 0.5.

The substrate I used was Activ-Flora Planted Aquarium Substrate, Lake Gems and CaribSea Eco-Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate.

Could they attribute to the ammonia???

[Ken Burke]

That’s a tough one.  
Have you had your water tested at the lfs?  Is it possible your test results are skewed?

is your water clear?

 

[Katie B.]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:23 PM, Ken Burke said:

That’s a tough one.  
Have you had your water tested at the lfs?  Is it possible your test results are skewed?

is your water clear?

 

My water is clear and my results are not skewed (used several tests). I am doing 30% water changes every few days. I am thinking plants will help???

[Jeklabo]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:43 PM, DaveO said:

Is the new substrate releasing the ammonia? If so, you will just have to keep up with water changes. I can't remember the brands that release ammonia but I'm sure others here will know. Everything you did setting up the new scape sounded good for keeping your cycle.

I have a small layer of aqua soil underneath the sand. Do you think it could be the aqua soil? Will it be doing this forever?

On 3/28/2022 at 8:23 PM, Ken Burke said:

That’s a tough one.  
Have you had your water tested at the lfs?  Is it possible your test results are skewed?

is your water clear?

 

I have not had my water tested at the lfs, so I suppose it's possible that there is something wrong with my tests, I'll take a sample to them when they open on Wednesday

My water is clear

[gardenman]

The good news is the low pH (6.0-6.4) makes the ammonia relatively harmless. If your pH was 8.0 with that kind of ammonia you'd be in trouble, but at a low pH, it's pretty much nontoxic until higher concentrations are reached. My suspicion is that your tank is cycled. It's pretty hard to have a tank up for three months with old filter stuff in it and it not be cycled. Bacteria aren't the easiest thing in the world to kill. 

Have you tested your tap water for ammonia?  Around 30 years ago I cleaned my Oscar's tank and redid everything and saw the ammonia levels start to rise. I kept changing the water and the levels kept rising. I was very confused. I eventually thought to test my tap water and yep, that was the problem. There was high ammonia in it. Once I stopped adding fresh water, his tank stabilized, and everything was fine. It could be your tap water is adding ammonia or it could be leaching from the substrate, but in either case, it's not a big issue with that low of a pH.

[DaveO]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:56 PM, Jeklabo said:

I have a small layer of aqua soil underneath the sand. Do you think it could be the aqua soil? Will it be doing this forever?

Ok, so it was fluval stratum and ada Amazonia aquasoils that I was thinking of that leach ammonia. I was having a brain fart there for a minute. No, it won't last forever. It should stop leaching ammonia after a couple months or so.

[Ken Burke]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:56 PM, Jeklabo said:

I have a small layer of aqua soil underneath the sand. Do you think it could be the aqua soil? Will it be doing this forever?

I have not had my water tested at the lfs, so I suppose it's possible that there is something wrong with my tests, I'll take a sample to them when they open on Wednesday

My water is clear

A second opinion never hurts.  

On 3/28/2022 at 7:46 PM, Katie B. said:

My water is clear and my results are not skewed (used several tests). I am doing 30% water changes every few days. I am thinking plants will help???

Plants definitely help!  Your frequent water changes indicate u are monitoring closely.  Should work out fine after a time

[modified lung]

It's your pH. The population growth of nitrifying bacteria slows to a crawl below pH of 6.7. If your alkalinity is below 40 ppm, even more so because they consume bicarbonates as a carbon source which they need for reproduction.

[Jeklabo]

On 3/29/2022 at 12:53 AM, modified lung said:

It's your pH. The population growth of nitrifying bacteria slows to a crawl below pH of 6.7. If your alkalinity is below 40 ppm, even more so because they consume bicarbonates as a carbon source which they need for reproduction.

I had no idea, thank you. I'll try some methods of raising the pH and alkalinity. 

[modified lung]

On 3/29/2022 at 6:36 AM, Jeklabo said:

I had no idea, thank you. I'll try some methods of raising the pH and alkalinity. 

No problem.

Definitely keep in mind what gardenman said though. The higher the pH the more toxic the total ammonia.

I'd try to keep pH around 7.0 and when your bacteria population gets big enough you can slowly bring it back down to your normal 6.0-6.4 level. It's hard to say when that will be though, you'll have to experiment. After 3 months I'm guessing you're might already be close.

Or lots of people like adding crushed coral to stabilize pH a little higher. I haven't done that one myself so idk the details. Someone else would have to tell you more about it.

[AndEEss]

This needs to be in a sticky.

To establish a cycle, pH should be above 7, as @modified lung stated. After that, it can drop, but it's hard to get them going properly without pH above 7. 

However, ammonia and nitrite toxicity varies with pH as well. Your low pH keeps the Ammonia from killing your fish. See the graph here.

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/5-ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-and-chlorine/

[Patrick_G]

In my case all my tanks established healthy  cycles using cycled media in short periods of time in soft, acidic water conditions. I think @gardenman and @DaveO might be right about the ammonia coming from the aquasoil or your tap water. 

[EVoyager31]

Anytime I have had cycle issues (or starting a new tank) I have always used fritzyme 7 or the more potent version fritzyme powerstart 700. Its live bacteria that get the cycle going and stable quickly! 
I have had zero issues with this method of cycling and fixing my water, it is a product I swear by!

[modified lung]

On 3/29/2022 at 7:57 AM, AndEEss said:

This needs to be in a sticky.

To establish a cycle, pH should be above 7, as @modified lung stated. After that, it can drop, but it's hard to get them going properly without pH above 7. 

However, ammonia and nitrite toxicity varies with pH as well. Your low pH keeps the Ammonia from killing your fish. See the graph here.

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/5-ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-and-chlorine/

I think a lot of confusion comes from the fact that over a long time period biofilms can adapt to almost anything, so a lot of people have conflicting long term experiences. If it happens enough, they can even adapt to be completely unaffected by huge rapid swings in parameters that would normally stop a cycle. 

 

Not a big fan of that website though.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

So I think in summary don't mess with your pH unless you are ready to have toxic ammonia on your hands. Heavier planting especially with stems, swords, aponogetons, or other fast growing plants that could suck up the extra ammonia would be of benefit.

@gardenmanhas kind of written the book on the forum in terms of nitrogen export but because the ammonia is non-toxic due to the pH the typical nitrogenous waste exporting tools are not applicable. 

I think it is too late for a raise the pH and cycle the tank approach unless you have another cycled tank to move the fish to. 

I would test your water straight from the tap for ammonia. If that is the source then you know. All aquasoils except for Brightwell leach ammonia, it is what makes them aquasoils full of goodies for the plants. 3 months out I would not think it is the aquasoil though. You could take a handful of substrate, put in dechlorinated tap water, and test the next morning. 

If it is your water I think you could age the water - put it in a 35 g trash barrel with a heater, air stone and keep it overnight and measure the ammonia level the next day. 

I would make sure that you have media with maximum surface area to attract and keep beneficial bacteria. 30 ppi sponge is my choice and aquariumscience.org backs this up. Other choices are sintered glass media, 

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/28/2022 at 4:50 PM, Katie B. said:

The substrate I used was Activ-Flora Planted Aquarium Substrate, Lake Gems and CaribSea Eco-Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate.

Could they attribute to the ammonia???

Eco complete and some others are known to release ammonia for the first 2-4 weeks. It is unfortunate and just a part of those types of medias. It just takes time for the ammonia to seep out and water changes / tank to be able to handle the ammonia.

If you're running into major issues (fish in the tank), something that @Jeklabo seems to be going through, add some extra media to the HoB filter (or just lava rocks/pumice or a bag of media in the tank itself on/near the sponge filter).

Adding some media gives the bacteria more places to call home, especially in a HoB and will help get the cycle up faster. Once you have that going, keep up with water changes daily, whenever the water gets above the ammonia level of concern (10 ppm or higher, change 15% water daily). 

I would also recommend adding bacteria from a bottle for this time just to push the aquarium to cycle as quickly as possible. It should take 3-4 days to get through this and then about 7-10 days for you to no longer needing to be concerned with ammonia anymore.

On 3/28/2022 at 5:56 PM, Jeklabo said:

I have not had my water tested at the lfs, so I suppose it's possible that there is something wrong with my tests, I'll take a sample to them when they open on Wednesday

My water is clear

Please be sure to try to find some test strips, you're going to need to test the water almost every 24 hours while you are working through this issue. Unfortunately the ammonia tests are one product while the nitrite/nitrate testing is another item to purchase.

 

 

On 3/28/2022 at 2:43 PM, Jeklabo said:

so I made sure to re-use the same 2 filters (and I didn't clean them so they were still nice and dirty and covered in bacteria) from before, I re-used some of the plants from the previous setup, I re-used a couple of the rocks from the previous setup, and I re-used about half of the water too. I took as many steps as I could to ensure that I would be carrying over as much of my cycle as possible, and even added bottled bacteria just to be sure. 

Which type of filters are you using? How are they setup?

 

 

On 3/28/2022 at 2:43 PM, Jeklabo said:

Initially, I tried doing 25-40% water changes every other day, but the ammonia would always rise again the next day. Then, I tried waiting around a week between water changes to see if that would help (but not any longer since I don't want my fish to be swimming in 2.0 ppm ammonia water for too long) and that didn't work either. I added an entire brand new bottle of bacteria over the course of a two weeks, and it made no difference. I always use water conditioner (Prime and sometimes Stress Coat) when I add water to the tank. 

Add prime only while you're trying to cycle the tank. You might have too many chemicals in the water causing issues (this came up in another thread where the fish were struggling as a result).  For now, prime only, bacteria only. Avoid the stress coat until after you have a cycle set in and when you see or have situations where the fish are stressed out.  If you need to add something for stress, I highly recommend salt instead of stress coat.

When you have your water tested at the local shop, take one sample of test water and one sample of water from the tap.  This will give you an idea if the issue is the tank or the water itself.

On 3/29/2022 at 2:07 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

If it is your water I think you could age the water - put it in a 35 g trash barrel with a heater, air stone and keep it overnight and measure the ammonia level the next day. 

this is a great suggestion. The only issue is whether or not you're having issue with ammonia or ammonium in the water and what is being bonded with via the water dechlorinator or removed via aeration.

[Jeklabo]

On 3/29/2022 at 5:07 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

So I think in summary don't mess with your pH unless you are ready to have toxic ammonia on your hands. Heavier planting especially with stems, swords, aponogetons, or other fast growing plants that could suck up the extra ammonia would be of benefit.

@gardenmanhas kind of written the book on the forum in terms of nitrogen export but because the ammonia is non-toxic due to the pH the typical nitrogenous waste exporting tools are not applicable. 

I think it is too late for a raise the pH and cycle the tank approach unless you have another cycled tank to move the fish to. 

I would test your water straight from the tap for ammonia. If that is the source then you know. All aquasoils except for Brightwell leach ammonia, it is what makes them aquasoils full of goodies for the plants. 3 months out I would not think it is the aquasoil though. You could take a handful of substrate, put in dechlorinated tap water, and test the next morning. 

If it is your water I think you could age the water - put it in a 35 g trash barrel with a heater, air stone and keep it overnight and measure the ammonia level the next day. 

I would make sure that you have media with maximum surface area to attract and keep beneficial bacteria. 30 ppi sponge is my choice and aquariumscience.org backs this up. Other choices are sintered glass media, 

I don't have another tank to put them in, unfortunately. 

I also tested my tap water and its not the source of the ammonia, although I haven't tested the tap water with the aquasoil yet. 

What do you think I should do? Is it possible for me to grow a colony of bacteria in my water still? Or should I just leave things be since the fish all seem okay. I do have a ton of stem plants which is nice. 

[Jeklabo]

Thank you all for the information so far. It seems that my issue is that my water is too soft and acidic to effectively grow a healthy colony of bacteria.

My question now is what to do now? If I raise the pH then the ammonia will become too toxic for my fish to handle. Should I just raise the pH and do daily water changes to compensate? 

I have a lot of plants that seem to be helping and the fish seem healthy, so should I just leave the water as is and let the bacteria grow slowly but surely?

I really appreciate all the answers that you all have provided but now I need to know what to do next, thank you. 

On 3/28/2022 at 9:25 PM, gardenman said:

The good news is the low pH (6.0-6.4) makes the ammonia relatively harmless. If your pH was 8.0 with that kind of ammonia you'd be in trouble, but at a low pH, it's pretty much nontoxic until higher concentrations are reached. My suspicion is that your tank is cycled. It's pretty hard to have a tank up for three months with old filter stuff in it and it not be cycled. Bacteria aren't the easiest thing in the world to kill. 

Have you tested your tap water for ammonia?  Around 30 years ago I cleaned my Oscar's tank and redid everything and saw the ammonia levels start to rise. I kept changing the water and the levels kept rising. I was very confused. I eventually thought to test my tap water and yep, that was the problem. There was high ammonia in it. Once I stopped adding fresh water, his tank stabilized, and everything was fine. It could be your tap water is adding ammonia or it could be leaching from the substrate, but in either case, it's not a big issue with that low of a pH.

Thank you for the information, it's a relief to know that the ammonia isn't causing many issues for the fish at that low of a pH.

I wanted to ask, then, what should I do now? Can I leave the tank be since the fish seem okay and the plants are growing well? Will the bacteria grow eventually and start breaking down all the ammonia?

[Jeklabo]

On 3/29/2022 at 5:07 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

So I think in summary don't mess with your pH unless you are ready to have toxic ammonia on your hands. Heavier planting especially with stems, swords, aponogetons, or other fast growing plants that could suck up the extra ammonia would be of benefit.

@gardenmanhas kind of written the book on the forum in terms of nitrogen export but because the ammonia is non-toxic due to the pH the typical nitrogenous waste exporting tools are not applicable. 

I think it is too late for a raise the pH and cycle the tank approach unless you have another cycled tank to move the fish to. 

I would test your water straight from the tap for ammonia. If that is the source then you know. All aquasoils except for Brightwell leach ammonia, it is what makes them aquasoils full of goodies for the plants. 3 months out I would not think it is the aquasoil though. You could take a handful of substrate, put in dechlorinated tap water, and test the next morning. 

If it is your water I think you could age the water - put it in a 35 g trash barrel with a heater, air stone and keep it overnight and measure the ammonia level the next day. 

I would make sure that you have media with maximum surface area to attract and keep beneficial bacteria. 30 ppi sponge is my choice and aquariumscience.org backs this up. Other choices are sintered glass media, 

If it's too late to raise the pH and cycle the tank, then what would you suggest doing? If I leave things be, will bacteria grow eventually?

[modified lung]

Either option is legit. Whichever seems the easiest to you is the one you should do.