i have a 55 gallon fish tank that has been cycling for about 4 weeks now.

i have 10 zebra danio's and 2 otto catfish (to keep brown algae at bay) living in there. its been 4 weeks since i added the danio's and 2 days since i added the ottos and for what ever reason i cant get a single reading on nitrite.

as of 1 week ago i started using api stress zyme biological filtration booster to hopefully get a nitrite reading. but to no avail.


i just dont know what is wrong, im not adding any chemical's at all to keep the water safe. the only thing im doing is every week or so ill do a 20% water changes to keep my amonia at about 2.0 ppm inorder to keep my fish alive and have plenty of amonia for bacteria whenever they decide to show up >:t im not even really sucking up and cleaning the gravel.

i know this takes a while especially because i dont have access to another cycled tank where i could get some gravel from, so i have to start from scratch. but by now i would have guessed it would have atleast started. im using the api freshwater master test kit so im nearly positive my reading are accurate.

maybe im doing something wrong, idk. any tips or anything you can provide is appreciated.

my water is at 78 farenheit.
amonia 2.0 ppm
nitrite 0.0 ppm
nitrate 0.0 ppm

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your ammonia is up the rest are down, the fish arent creating enough of a bio load to properly cycle the tank. overfeed a bit, keep an eye on the parameters daily and go from there, you said no spike other then ammonia, you will see that go down when the others start to go ip. NITRATES are ok to have a little of but as of right now you have none.

See if an LFS can give you some gravel or some filter sponges to cycle with.

anyone else got any other tips?

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I would not do anything to drive your ammonia past the level it already is. In fact, I tried to keep mine at 1 or below. If the fish are doing fine at 2 then okay, but I wouldn't push it any further.

I never saw nitrites when I cycled my 75g with fish. And, my nitrate reading was below 5. If you notice when you test for nitrates that the color after 5min is not really orange and not really yellow it means nitrates are present, but not enough to hit the first color - my experience anyway.

Really nothing to do but wait it out. My tank took 6.5 weeks.

Live plants will consume ammoina directly so with live plants the cycle is actually low or no ammonia/nitrItes with an initial spike of nitrates. Then as the tank cycles a few weeks later nitrAtes drop down.

I would add fast growing plants like anacharis or vals.

And not add food until ammonia drops down to .25 or lower.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Getting used filter media from a LFS is never a bad idea. As far as your cycling problems go, it's basically stalled. This can occur from the fact that only certain types of bacteria get added to your tank when you use bottled bacterial additives; sometimes these bacteria are not diverse enough and your tank cannot get through it's cycle due to the lack of bacterial diversity. So, old filter media is definitely a plus. In the meantime, keep a close watch on the ammonia; it can creep up fast.

In the future, consider fishless cycling. That way you can add ammonia at a high level without worrying about killing your fish. Fishless Cycling - Article at The Age of Aquariums - Tropical Fish

Good luck and keep us posted.

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When in doubt, do a water change.

thanks for the advice guys, but more is always appreciated from anyone.

i will do a full test on my water tonight and give you guys my readings.

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yeah amonia is about 1.3ppm ish
nitrite is 0.0 ppm
nitrate is maybe .5 ppm (it was just barely oranger than 0.0, but maybe i read it wrong)

so basically i dont have any bacteria at all. fail.

i need to get someones used filter or some gravel or something but idk where to go. there is a small mom and pop aquarium shop relatively close to my house but i went and asked them and they told me it was against their policy to give out gravel just incase there was something wrong with their water, they didnt want to pass it to mine.

fail.

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Some people will recommend against getting stuff from a lfs. Better to get from a friend that has a tank.

You will grow your bacteria, just give it time.

have you tried 4-8 bunches of anacharis?

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden