cycling my tank?

Question

I started cycling my tank 2weeks and four days ago. I used a product called ammonia lock when i had my first ammonia spike. Ever since then my ammonia readings have been off the charts. Hence it reads the neutralized ammonia. In my 2nd week i woke up and my tank was all cloudy ( benificial bacteria) i went to the pet store and the guy thought i had too many fish. At the time i didnt know what the cloudiness was. He talked me into getting an extra filter but i couldnt fit another one so i just bought a bigger one. when really i had too many fish so i got rid of some of them. So after this i was afraid my tank would start to cycle again cuz i replaced the filter 2 weeks into cycling. I had benificial bacteria floating in the tank so i figured it would be ok it would just slow it down. still wasnt a good idea. i had soaring ammonia and soaring nitrites. i test 2 days later and have soaring ammonia and 40 nitrates and no nitrite! how can i tell what the ammonia really is?

Answer 1

I only started tanks a year ago and I hav efound its best to let it all happen naturally. The more "crap" you put in the worse it ends up.

I use dechlorinator and aquarium salt. Do my water changes and everyone seems to be happy and healthy.

Answer 2

If you're still using the Ammo Lock, stop. You're correct that in many of these product, you'll get readings on "neutralized" products (not just ammonia, but this can also happen with nitrite too). To get a real picture of what's going on, you need to see the "unaltered" products, and that's what your bacteria use.

The only way to do that is to get the AmmoLock out of the tank - that's done through water changes. You can do a larger partial change today, followed by smaller ones over the next few days. Don't touch the filter media (unless it's reallt clogged). If necessary to clean it, get a container and use water from the tank, or dechlorinated water - cleaning it under the tap kills the bacteria from the chlorine/chloramine in the water. Also, don't clean the filter and do a water change in the same day - you'll lose more bacteria.

When you do the series of water changes, don't clean down into the gravel each time - only once a week. Once you get the leves so that ammonia/nitrite are both below 0.5 and nitrate is under 30, wait a day, then do a test. Keep the test levels below those I've specified for the rest of the cycle.

Also, if your fish can tolerate higher temperatures than what are in your tank at present, raising the water temperature (any amount) will increase the reproduction rate of the bacteria, so cycling will take less time. Just don't turn it up so high the fish are uncomfortable.

Answer 3

When the current fish die, do a round of fish-less cycling,and let the ammonia spike. You ended the cycle when you added the Ammo-lock. The bacteria colonies were starved out,the way to control the ammonia with fish in the tank is by changing water. When you tied up all of the ammonia you starved the bacteria,just when they needed to have ammonia to grow their colonies. Also the second set of bacteria(the Nitrite to Nitrate guys) have to have Nitrites to feed on,or they can't grow. Cycling a tank with fish in it takes much longer than fish-less cycling(which takes several weeks) and subjects your fish to toxins that are very bad for their health.
You have all kinds of bacteria floating in your tank and the cloudiness will be there for several weeks,even if you changed everything and started all over they would come back quickly. So tough it out,try to manage the ammonia levels so you don't lose any more fish, cut the feedings to one small(very,very,small)feeding so the ammonia won't build up too quickly, begin to research fish-less cycling.

Answer 4

buy a couple gold fish. they will help cycle your tank.

when i got my fresh water tank, it took like 6 weeks to be perfect (for my crawfish atleast)