My new tank!

[morpheus]

all the same stuff came with my eheim. i hear the substrat pro is really good so i am in your boat...waiting for everything to cycle. my driftwood did the same. took a piece from another tank and it turned white in many spots. i am impatient :)

[Thomas and Jennifer]

I think I might have to sell this tank!

It will NOT cycle! The tank will keep ammonia (ca. 2 ppm), but slowly lose it over a few days. Nitrite and nitrates remains 0 ppm.

On Monday, I got desperate and filled the filter with Substratand out of my operating mbuna tank into the filter. I swapped about 90% of the Substratand in the new filter with old media. The 2217s on my mbuna tank could donate without a problem to fill the 2213. Still no nitrite or nitrates.

The drift wood is getting super slimy, which have have scrapped some off during a water change. Mostly the changes were to remove tannins and slime.

Any ideas? I'm sort of stuck right now and other than tons of testing, I don't know what else I can do.

[mnemenoi]

Maybe add a few danios or something to see how they do and walk it through the rest of the cycle? Sounds like you are doing everything right. It looks great. All the dry driftwood gets that stuff, it eventually stops. Just takes awhile

[morpheus]

i dont usually do fishless cycling, but sounds like you are on top of things. it just takes time. i would agree with some type of hardy nano fish to help. i have seen tanks take months to cycle. yes the water changes will delay it a bit, but you now have seeded media in the eheim and as long as the water is clean you will be fine.

i get impatient as well with new tanks (you should read threads on my new shrimp tank haha). i always want things to just work right away. then i give up and just let nature take its course.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

It has been over a month and no movement on the cycling. I am more concerned there is a problem rather than the timeline. With seeded media I expected at least the nitrite making colony to have survived and established. Having no nitrites makes me a little nervous.

I have some black skirt tetras I was going to give away, I might drop one in later in the week if the ammonia comes down some.

[troy tucker]

IMO> It's the chloramine in the tap water. it shows on your test as ammonia. That's why it drops after a few day. and you are not seeing any nitrates or nitrites. Just my opinion.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

Right after a water change, I agree. I'm adding in ammonia from a bottle of ammonia solution (ammonium hydroxide if you really want to get technical), so I know there is truly ammonia being added. I shoot for 1.5 ppm.

[ptran]

Put a some pellets to feed the bacteria in the filter.

[sfasu]

Something that puzzles me with so many people here cycling their tanks. Why waste all that time when products like SafeStart (which was originally bio-spira)exist? Not the cheap junk on the shelves at petsmart, but the refridgerated stuff. Ive used that on all my tanks for the past 8 years or so an no cycling and no fishie deaths.

[EpikMuffin]

I have old cycled tanks and am too cheap to buy extra stuff

[ptran]

I have old cycled tanks and am too cheap to buy extra stuff

Same here. I usually plan ahead and seed a new filter in the old tank before setting up a new tank.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

Since our last update, I dropped in three black skirt tetras and a dwarf gourami into the tank. I had one black skirt at first, but he was sad being alone, so I brought hi friends in. I have been feeding as normal, maybe a little heavy. Last night ammonia was 0.25 ppm and 0 for nitrite and nitrate.

[Thomas and Jennifer]

Well...it has been four months since I got the tank setup! I'm in the process of rescaping...again. The azalea root is still growing white, feathery slime. It get worse and better, but I'm not sure why. I love the look of nice driftwood, but something is just not working in this tank. I'm thinking of ditching the wood and going all stones. Not the look I wanted, but slimy driftwood is even worse.