Help. I can't get my ammonia level down updated reply

[GisheryGoodness]

So I'm pretty sure I messed up my cycle or perhaps it never actually fully cycled in the first place because I changed to sponge type filters instead of the carbon filters, I didn't immediately throw them out, I let it build up, at least I thought I did. Water parameters had been reading fine until I did a weekly water change last Wed. I did a bit more of the gravel than usual because I finally got my python hose in but I don't think thats what did it but idk. I did about 20% as was my usual and then I cleaned two of the 4 sponges in some tank water I reserved in a bucket. Added Prime and put new water back in, started everything back up. Next day ammonia reading was at 1.0 so I did another water change and at some advice given started using Stability daily. It didn't seem to help, I did daily water changes and added both Stability and Prime through Sunday but ammonia never dropped below. 25. Then I read that Prime could give off false reading for ammonia so I held off on water changes and the Prime for a couple of days. Yesterday the ammonia levels were at nearly 2.0 so I did a 50% water change and at this point was scared maybe the Prime was making it worse so I stupidly didn't add it. Today when I tested ammonia was still at 2.0 and the nitrites were now at .50 so I added a triple dose of Prime and waited 30 minutes. The ammonia reading is at maybe. 50 and the nitrites are down for now. I'm frustrated with myself and unsure of what I need to do. More water changes daily or watch it now and see since it seems I messed up the cycle when I cleaned the filter or something. None of my other tanks are having these readings so I don't think they're false readings. I did water changes in all on Wednesday, it's my WC day. I'm terrified I'm going to lose all my fish, though surprisingly they're not really showing signs that I've noticed. 

Tank is 55 gallon 

Before I messed it up the parameters were

PH - 7.6

Ammonia - 0

Nitrites - 0

Nitrates - btw 5 and 10

Gh and Kh - 5 

Tank before Prime 

Ph - 7.6

Ammonia- 2.0

Nitrites - .50

Nitrates - 0

Gh and Kh - 5

Tank 30 minutes ago

Difference 

Ammonia - .50

Nitrites - 0

I have not seen Nitrates since the fateful filter change. 

Stocking

6 Black Skirt Tetras

6 Serpae Tetras

6 Julii Cory cats

1 Blue eye Lemon Bristlenose Pleco

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by GisheryGoodness
Updated reply

[Colu]

Have you tested your tap water for ammonia if not I would if they's no ammonia present in your tap water what I would do is test daily and do  50% daily water changes and add a double dose of prime to help detoxify any ammonia or nitrites till you ammonia and nitirte constantly stays at zero and add some aquarium salt as it helps to provent nitirte toxicity thought absorption of the gills and it helps speed up the removal of ammonia from your fishs blood as well 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Colu

[GisheryGoodness]

Tap water doesn't show any ammonia which was my first guess, so using Prime daily with WC isn't overdoing it?

[Colu]

On 7/1/2022 at 1:05 AM, GisheryGoodness said:

Tap water doesn't show any ammonia which was my first guess, so using Prime daily with WC isn't overdoing it?

You can dose prime every 24hr 

[Patrick_G]

I know it’s a big tank, but I’d do a large water change, to get the Ammonia down to .5 or less. With your relatively small stocking level that should give the tank enough time to finish cycling. You’ll still need to add prime, and maybe do small water changes, but the large initial change will get that Ammonia diluted. 

[HH Morant]

Prime is good for dechlorination, but I am convinced it does nothing to ammonia. See articles regarding detoxification claims at aquariumscience.org. Most dechlorinaters claim to  detoxify ammonia. Its not just Prime. Nobody regulates what they put on their labels. You have to use water changes to keep the ammonia level down.

[Anon]

You can do partial water changes every 24 hrs. Try to aim for 0.5 ammonia or below. Having the temperatures above 75 will help bacteria grow faster. I've had some crashes and this is how I got through them. It can be really stressful, and you'll always want to do more, but bacteria can only grow so fast. I've had limited success kickstarting cycles with a product called Seed by aquavitro. Just know that it could be a complete waste of your money. I don't recommend any sort of chemical stabilizer. 

[GisheryGoodness]

Well daily water changes have finally got the ammonia down to 0 but now the nitrites are staying at about 1ppm. I know that's part of the cycle but how long is it going to take? Nitrates seem like they might be trying to form but it hasn't quite reached even 5ppm yet but it's not just yellow either. I'm still doing daily water changes but I just wanted to know about how much longer I'm going to have to do that or if something else has gone wrong. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:48 PM, GisheryGoodness said:

Well daily water changes have finally got the ammonia down to 0 but now the nitrites are staying at about 1ppm. I know that's part of the cycle but how long is it going to take? Nitrates seem like they might be trying to form but it hasn't quite reached even 5ppm yet but it's not just yellow either. I'm still doing daily water changes but I just wanted to know about how much longer I'm going to have to do that or if something else has gone wrong. 

If you're dosing bacteria daily, it should be about a week. You're partially there with nitrites showing and nitrates should be 2-3 weeks for it to be fully cycled.  If I *had to guess* that would be my safest estimate. 

That being said, I don't think you need to do daily WCs with nitrites.  Here is a really good guide by the co-op.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/pages/water-changes

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/nitrogen-cycle

Edited July 7, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Gwallace]

I would dial the water changes back to a normal maintenance level at this point.  Patience is key at this point. 

[GisheryGoodness]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:46 PM, Gwallace said:

I would dial the water changes back to a normal maintenance level at this point.  Patience is key at this point. 

So the nitrites won't hurt them? 

[Gwallace]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:51 PM, GisheryGoodness said:

So the nitrites won't hurt them? 

It's not that nitrites are harmless...they are just not as harmful as ammonia.  That being said, now that you have nitrites it seems that your cycle has restarted so you want to avoid any large environmental changes that could disrupt the cycle again.  Let nature take it's course.  Test every 3 or 4 days, do small weekly or even bi-weekly water changes, and most importantly...watch your fish.  If you see something out of line test your water.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:51 PM, GisheryGoodness said:

So the nitrites won't hurt them? 

It depends on how much.  You can add salt to alleviate things like ammonia / nitrite damage.


If you're under 1 (I know, very difficult to read at times), then you should be ok to let the tang try to handle it. 

The point here is to monitor it daily and just keep an eye out on major swings.  Instead of a daily change, maybe every other day or once a week can be sufficient.

[GisheryGoodness]

Thank you both very much. It can be confusing sometimes to know what to do. 

[sweetpoison]

On 7/6/2022 at 6:16 PM, Gwallace said:

It's not that nitrites are harmless...they are just not as harmful as ammonia.  That being said, now that you have nitrites it seems that your cycle has restarted so you want to avoid any large environmental changes that could disrupt the cycle again.  Let nature take it's course.  Test every 3 or 4 days, do small weekly or even bi-weekly water changes, and most importantly...watch your fish.  If you see something out of line test your water.

I like this.  It’s going into my notes👏♥️

On 7/6/2022 at 6:25 PM, GisheryGoodness said:

Thank you both very much. It can be confusing sometimes to know what to do. 

That is an understatement!  I am in the process of trying to cycle my fishless tank which I never done before ~ it is not fun or easy.  Requires patience🙄

Thank God for this place and these people seriously♥️
 

Hang in there!

[sweetpoison]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

If you're dosing bacteria daily, it should be about a week. You're partially there with nitrites showing and nitrates should be 2-3 weeks for it to be fully cycled.  If I *had to guess* that would be my safest estimate. 

That being said, I don't think you need to do daily WCs with nitrites.  Here is a really good guide by the co-op.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/pages/water-changes

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/nitrogen-cycle

 

I have a question.  I tried to copy these and put them in a separate thread so I wouldn’t hijack the original posters thread but it wouldn’t work.

“nitrogen compounds can potentially kill our fish unless we make sure we have plenty of microorganisms (also known as beneficial bacteria) and plants to consume the waste products

How do we make sure of this? By testing?

 

 

[Colu]

I would definitely do a water if your nitirtes get to 1ppm to protect your fish from nitirte toxicity 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2022 at 6:57 PM, sweetpoison said:

How do we make sure of this? By testing?

It's basically just saying you need to have a cycled tank.

Essentially there's a variety of ways to view a tank as "cycled" and there's a set of parameters people use for fish only, planted, or other tank setups.
 

One of the main things we do when starting a tank is get impatient. Testing gives us gates.  The logic being, when you go from gate 1-3, then you can add fish.  We want to see ammonia turn into nitrite and then nitrite into nitrate.  The first gate is pretty easy to get to.  Have a box with some water, aeration, flow, movement, and it takes a very short amount of time if there is something for the bacteria to thrive on.  Getting from nitrite to nitrate takes a little while longer. Something like weeks longer by comparison.  It doesn't mean that you will or won't see nitrates, I just mean that to have enough bacteria to handle load you're talking about a much longer process than simply getting ammonia into nitrite.

From my view, with bacteria in a bottle, you can have a tank up in 14ish days.

If you're not dosing daily for a week, then I honestly think you should wait minimum 1 month. It takes about a week, sometimes two for the first stage and then several weeks later for the nitrates to show up.  Then you're waiting for stability. THIS is where people make mistakes.  THIS is where people dump a ton of fish and bioload and cause issues.  Input X ppm of ammonia from food and waste, then how long does it take for that to be cycled into nitrite and nitrate. How strong is the bacteria colonies in your tank?  Stability reduces stress, patience gives you stability.

On 7/6/2022 at 7:11 PM, Colu said:

I would definitely do a water if your nitirtes get to 1ppm to protect your fish from nitirte toxicity 

Agreed!

Edited July 7, 2022 by nabokovfan87
added video

[Minanora]

So. I know you're doing a lot of things, and trying to get this right. But legit, just roll with it. Don't stress yourself out. Let it cycle, watch your fish if you have them, check once a week if there's no distress.

I did fishless cycles on my last three tanks and I've done 3 in stagnant jugs and 2 five gallon buckets. It's just a waiting game. I even threw part of a doughnut in one of the buckets to see what would happen after the cycle had complete. It was gross, but it re-cycled! No pun intended. Nature finds a way!

[GisheryGoodness]

Thank you all so much for the help. I finally have the tank at normal levels. I did end up losing 2 of my corys but everyone else seems ok. Still watching closely for any signs of illness but hopefully all is well, at least in this tank.