My ammonia is rising on its own during a fishless cycle?

[urbanstress]

Hey guys! So I’ve had my 20 gal long tank since Feb. 7 of this year and everything was cycling well with some semi-established media. Then on March 1 I found a decaying cockroach in one of my tank decorations. 

Since removing the roach and decoration I have done two massive water changes and subsequent ones as needed to lower the off the charts ammonia. However, even when I get it down to 0 ppm it climbs back up on its own.

Before all of this I already had some Nitrites and Nitrates and then the cycle stalled. Two days ago my Nitrites finally converted into Nitrates but the ammonia is not budging. Thank you for any help. If you need more info from me let me know.

Edited March 24, 2021 by urbanstress
Typos

[Fish Folk]

Check your tap water. It often contains ammonia. Doing water changes just raises Ammonia under those conditions. We use Fritz Complete. It locks up Ammonia as well as treating for Chlorine / Chloramine. 

You could add more live plants. A lot of plants will suck up Ammonia, and use it to fuel growth. But unless there's enough Nitrate in the water, you'll need to fertilize to round out the plant needs. 

Are there fish in the tank? 

[Ken]

It's just a hiccup in the cycle, wait it out. I wouldn't change any more water or put any chemicals in the water. Since you have seen nitrites and nitrates it probably won't take more than another week or two. 

There are no fish to hurt and plants like ammonia. You didn't mention plants but just in case.  

Edited March 24, 2021 by Ken
plants

[CT_]

dechlorinator + chloramine => ammonia  too.  I'm not sure how the tests work but it may not show up until a couple min after adding dechlorinator. 

[RyanU]

Something that you may want to try that helped me. I was stuck doing a fish in cycle and my ammonia and nitrite levels stopped moving. 1ppm and .5ppm respectively. I talked to my LFS and he said try using bacteria in a bottle. I went with Aquavitro Seed. It is made by seachem but is their latest and greatest BB in a bottle. You double dose on the first day and regular dose every day for seven days. On day 2 of the dosing of Seed my ammonia levels dropped down to .25 and my nitrite went to 0. After the seven days of using all my levels were right,  0 amonia, 0 nitrite, and about 5-10 ppm of nitrates. I have been checking my water parameters daily for the last week and a half to make sure nothing crashes and so far so good. That's one option to help you get something moving again. 

[Goosedub]

Honestly, I would just wait it out and stop changing water for the time being. Let your bacteria build up to handle that ammonia.

Also, if using plants, I have made the mistake of under-feeding my plants due to concern to rising nutrient levels. Plants will be more efficient cleaning out the ammonia if they are well fed with a fertilizer.

[Dawn T]

I agree with above - if you're cycling the tank without fish, leave it alone. The water changes, especially big ones, are preventing the bacterial colonies from establishing properly as you're removing their food source (the ammonia). When I set up new tanks, they don't get water changes. AT ALL. I do fishless cycling, so no harm to livestock when there are spikes that occur naturally during cycling.