# Why won't my tank cycle?



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

Hello everyone I'm having issues with cycling my beastly 450 gallon tank. It has been running for a month with fish in it and I've dumped alot of money on chemicals(Stability/Bacter booster etc) in it...My water parameters as of today are

7.2 ph
1.5 ammonia
0.25 Nitrite
30ppm Nitrate

Stock are about 15 fish. 5 of them being monsters. The rest are small fish.

I have done about 4 x 30 percent wc and 1 x 50 percent wc's to keep the spikes down in the past month. Also everytime I do a wc my parameters seem to stay the same...My dad's freaking out cuz I'm using so much water... Anyhow my filtration system is a 96 gallon wet/dry sump with about 20 gallons of bioballs with about 2600gph return. I also have a Fx5 running with one tray full of biomax and the other trays with mech/chemical media. I've followed instructions on adding the stability. I've used up 3L's of it and I already dumped a bottle of Bacter booster in as well. Do I not have enough bio filtration to handle the bio load? What am I doing wrong? Please help. 


Thanks


----------



## rescuepenguin (Apr 21, 2010)

I would stop adding chemicals and let it happen. A filter from an established tank should help too.


----------



## jm. (May 12, 2010)

Have you tried seeding your media by getting filter media/and or 'gunk' from an already established tank?


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

Yes I kick started the tank by getting 20 gallons of mulm filter water from friends fish store in the beginning. Dumped it straight into the sump. My Ammo sometimes jump up to 2.0. Usually between 1.0-2.0. My Nitrite is usually 0.25-0.5. I have not seen it any higher then that...


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

should i just keep doing wc's to get the ammo out? I just did a 50 percent wc 2 days ago. Also I've lost 5 x 4-5" Geophagus's during the cycle period. I do not want to lose any more fish...


----------



## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Sorry to hear you are losing fish. I would definitely continue to do WC's to keep ammonia to a minimum. Sounds like your bacteria levels were not up to the levels required to handle that many big fish. Stability does work, but needs to be followed religiously. Given you have 450g of water, I'm not sure how much Stability you would need. I always do the "used filter media" route for new setups and it has never failed me. I don't normally take the "mulm water" but rather take the media itself. For me, usually means swapping out a couple of trays of seeded/mature Matrix or Ehfisubstrate from one of my canisters and putting it into the canister for the new tank. I do however try to limit the number of fish introduced until the tank has been stabilized. For now though, WC's are probably your only option.


----------



## davej (Apr 28, 2010)

How new is your ammonia test kit? Could it be faulty and out of date?


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

tony1928 said:


> Sorry to hear you are losing fish. I would definitely continue to do WC's to keep ammonia to a minimum. Sounds like your bacteria levels were not up to the levels required to handle that many big fish. Stability does work, but needs to be followed religiously. Given you have 450g of water, I'm not sure how much Stability you would need. I always do the "used filter media" route for new setups and it has never failed me. I don't normally take the "mulm water" but rather take the media itself. For me, usually means swapping out a couple of trays of seeded/mature Matrix or Ehfisubstrate from one of my canisters and putting it into the canister for the new tank. I do however try to limit the number of fish introduced until the tank has been stabilized. For now though, WC's are probably your only option.


Ya i should of took some media instead but I've done the mulm water before on smaller tanks and it has worked for me. I didn't have any established tanks while re setting up the 450 so I had to get the mulm from a friend's LFS. Also ya I shouldn't of started with so many fish but my friend was babysitting my fish in Calgary for a long time and he had to get the fish out of his tanks as he didn't have space for them. So I had no choice but to drive them back to BC. I guess I'll keep doing wc's and listen to my dad's bitching lol. How long does it usually take for a tank this size to be established? I also don't overfeed. I feed about twice a week only just to keep the fish alive.



davej said:


> How new is your ammonia test kit? Could it be faulty and out of date?


It's about a year old. Should i get a new one? It's the api test kits.


----------



## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Are you using Prime during your water changes? If you are, don't use the API kit. It'll give you a false positive for ammonia. That happened with me. Get a Seachem test kit.


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

2wheelsx2 said:


> Are you using Prime during your water changes? If you are, don't use the API kit. It'll give you a false positive for ammonia. That happened with me. Get a Seachem test kit.


Yes i do use prime. Hmm thats strange cuz my old set ups my api test kits work fine even with using prime. I never heard of that. I'll try a diff brand test kit tho. Thanks


----------



## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

I thought the same, but ran into a problem with this tank. I should test again now that my tank has been running for 6 months to see if it still gives me a false positive. With the Seachem kit I had no free ammonia.


----------



## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Very hard to say when your bacteria levels will balance to your bioload. Make sure you have enough biomedia to handle the bioload. On my 400g I'm using 4 FX5's and I think my bioload is a lot lower than yours. Large fish produce a lot of waste.


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

tony1928 said:


> Very hard to say when your bacteria levels will balance to your bioload. Make sure you have enough biomedia to handle the bioload. On my 400g I'm using 4 FX5's and I think my bioload is a lot lower than yours. Large fish produce a lot of waste.


I'm pretty sure i have enough bio media to handle the load. Each Fx5 has the capacity to hold 3L of biomedia if all trays are filled. My sump is running 20 gallons of bioballs which equals almost 80 L of biomedia + I also running a Fx5 that also has biomax in it..


----------



## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

If that's the case then its just a matter of being patient and waiting for the cycle to happen. Always better to overload on media just in case.



Crazyfish88 said:


> I'm pretty sure i have enough bio media to handle the load. Each Fx5 has the capacity to hold 3L of biomedia if all trays are filled. My sump is running 20 gallons of bioballs which equals almost 80 L of biomedia + I also running a Fx5 that also has biomax in it..


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

Ya patience but it seems like it's taking forever especially cheating the cycle with using alot of chemicals...


----------



## Gregzz4 (Jun 25, 2010)

I'd go with the suggestion to buy a Seachem Ammonia test kit.
The Nesslers style test kits ( and my Friend's API kit ) raise PH so high that you get false positives due to it releasing total Ammonia and it's read as free Ammonia.
The Indophenol kit I tried from Hagen ( 3 part vs 2 part Nesslers ) was a little more reliable, but I still had issues with false Ammo readings.
I bought the Seachem Ammo kit and problem solved. It allows you to test for both Free and Total Ammonia.
When you test with the Seachem kit like I did, and find that you have no Free Ammonia, you will stop doing massive water changes, like I did, and...
Just let your tank cycle!
Good luck.


----------



## Crazyfish88 (Apr 28, 2010)

Thanks everyone for the advice. My tank just finished cycling today=) It took nearly 5 weeks to cycle but it finally made it. Thanks again.


----------

