# New tank cycling, 18 days no nitrites.



## Couesfanatic (Sep 28, 2009)

More water decreases concentration of what? I'm not sure what you are trying to not dilute here, but I would fill the tank completely and run the HOB filter. Is the filter in use?

If you can get more plants in the tank that would speed things up a bit. Make sure you are shaking the bottles of the test kit and bang them together. Sometimes the test results are off if you don't get the bottles mixed enough.


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## sfsamm (Apr 3, 2017)

Yes definitely fill it up and run the filter. And shaking your test bottles is phenomenal advice. Plants not only benefit from a cycling aquarium if you have enough they can establish a silent cycle with no intervention from you. They also will almost always introduce some of the bb that you need and help move the cycle along. 

Mold is common when cycling with food, don't pick it out it's part of the process. 

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## sphynx (May 17, 2017)

Yes, the filter has been running since the beggining. Ok, I'll follow advice and fill the tank completely. The moss already has new shoots, and I'll be buying HG and other plants next week. It seems riccia came along with the moss so I'll be fixing it to rocks soon.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I did a cycle with fish food on my most recent tank setup. The nitrite stage takes longest to build up population. I got frustrated too. Be patient. One day like magic you'll have nitrite and then almost overnight you're done. Molding food looks nasty but leave it alone, its feeding your bacteria. That was the hardest part for me.


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

You can use something like a small piece of cut up fish or shrimp, but it will make your house smell like red tide, so I don't advise you do that.

If you have somebody around that you know and trust, you could also grab some established filter media from them and put it in your filter which will help. Otherwise, nitrites are slow to show up and slow to go away. Make sure your water is warm enough too. A temp of 80-86 will do the trick.


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## sphynx (May 17, 2017)

Day 21, still on 0.50ppm ammonia, no nitrites nor nitrates. Ph stable at the 7.4-7.6 range.


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## Willcooper (May 31, 2015)

At day 21 your cycle should be finished. I see that you nor anyone else has mentioned adding the bacteria. The bacteria will not form on its own. You will need to add a starter bacteria or get some used media to introduce bacteria to the aquarium. Preferable is used media but you can buy a starter bacteria from most any fish store. Just dump the whole bottle in. Skip the instructions. 


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## ice9 (Aug 15, 2016)

yeah, 21 days seems really long for nitrites to still be at 0. 0.5 Ammonia is a bit low to start the cycling tho - usually I aim for 1-2ppm. 

I'm guessing ordering from Amazon or other online store is too expensive to get the ammonia, or will they not ship there?

Also - are you running an airstone? These are aerobic bacteria, so oxygen is good.


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## Couesfanatic (Sep 28, 2009)

Willcooper said:


> At day 21 your cycle should be finished. I see that you nor anyone else has mentioned adding the bacteria. The bacteria will not form on its own. You will need to add a starter bacteria or get some used media to introduce bacteria to the aquarium. Preferable is used media but you can buy a starter bacteria from most any fish store. Just dump the whole bottle in. Skip the instructions.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


You can cycle a tank without adding the bacteria bottles, live plants or media from another tank. It just takes longer. 

I agree with the bottle idea at this point. It's worth the 5 dollars for the major speed up in time.


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## sphynx (May 17, 2017)

Willcooper said:


> At day 21 your cycle should be finished. I see that you nor anyone else has mentioned adding the bacteria. The bacteria will not form on its own. You will need to add a starter bacteria or get some used media to introduce bacteria to the aquarium. Preferable is used media but you can buy a starter bacteria from most any fish store. Just dump the whole bottle in. Skip the instructions.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


The moss came from another aquarium. I'll be buying more plants on monday so I hope they can help seed the tank. I'll give it a week and see. 



ice9 said:


> yeah, 21 days seems really long for nitrites to still be at 0. 0.5 Ammonia is a bit low to start the cycling tho - usually I aim for 1-2ppm.
> 
> I'm guessing ordering from Amazon or other online store is too expensive to get the ammonia, or will they not ship there?
> 
> Also - are you running an airstone? These are aerobic bacteria, so oxygen is good.


How much food do I need to feed the tank to reach 1ppm? I'm afraid I could overfeed it. Started seeing some planaria due to all that food lying about rotting in there.


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## AbbeysDad (Apr 13, 2016)

If it was me and I didn't already have an established tank or access to filter media from another healthy tank, I'd add more plants and then add a single fish or two. The plants will keep ammonia low and the BB will develop with much more stability. Many experts do this all the time as plants buffer the very slight ammonia generated by a single fish or two.


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## Dman911 (Nov 24, 2016)

Take some cheese cloth and fill it with fish food then drop it in the tank and give it a gentle squeeze each day or swish it around in the water or do a fish in cycle as suggested above.

Dan


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## Chaz D (May 14, 2016)

Get some tetra safestart and call it a day. Many of the bacteria in a bottle products don't work, my experience has shown this one does.


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## NightHedgie (Mar 17, 2017)

I've used API Quick Start, works for me, just ignore the instructions and use a lot 

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## sfsamm (Apr 3, 2017)

Well your getting tons of options. I've Fishless cycled, fish in cycled used bottle bacteria and not in both methods. Here's the short explanation and to dispel a couple misinformation posts. 

BB will eventually form on its own. My experience is it appears much faster with a fish than without, when not introducing from a bottle. 

The fish food method is hard to maintain the Ammonia and as you've mentioned there's a chance of planaria. I use ace Ammonia instead. Any pure notice additive Ammonia will work and you need very very very little to dose a tank. Make sure that the only ingredient is the Ammonia if you go this route. Also with fish food you have to wait for it to break down so it takes longer. 

With a fish you have to monitor your parameters daily and don't let Ammonia go over 1ppm at any point. Myself I dose prime daily, test parameters and keep Ammonia between .25 and .5ppm. Prime helps keep the Ammonia from harming the fish but only works for 24-48 hours hence daily doses. It will treat up to a total of 1ppm of Ammonia + nitrIte. 

If you get bottled bacteria be sure to get a reputable brand not some cheap pet store brand and many people report no success with off brands. Personally I've use Seachem Stability, but I've used the API brand as well and had good luck and have heard many other successes with both. 

Good luck and keep us updated! 

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## sphynx (May 17, 2017)

UPDATE. Day 27, finnaly got some nitrites. 1.0 or 2.0 (can't tell much) ppm of nitrites. Added hairgrass, montecarlo and blyxa japonica yesterday, and malasyan trumpets four days ago. 

Last night i spotted a weird red-brown worm, around 3mm long. Today morning I found a dead snail beside the worm. I syhponed the worm out and buried the snail in the sand (more ammonia). I'm a little confused now.


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## sfsamm (Apr 3, 2017)

If you have any more worms post a photo if possible, I'm terrible at identifying that stuff but I'm sure someone can and let you know if they're harmful. 

NitrIte! Yay! Keep checking, now that it's moving along hopefully you will see nitrAtes soon! 

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