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1200L cycle problem?


Fishie123

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Hello,

As everyone knows, I have been setting up my 1200L tank. At the moment I have am the cycling stage. I have 10 goldfish which I overfeed, 1 sump with 6 kg of bio noodles and 1 bag of bio balls with sponge at the top. 2 external filter AquaOne 1200(Cycled for 6 months) and Ehiem pro II(Cycle for 8 months). I have 5 heater together 600w at 26degrees.

It has been 4 week now. My ammonia is 4.0ppm, Nitrite 0.0ppm and Nitrate is 0.0ppm, PH 7.0 last week Monday. I have been using stabilizer for 1 weeks,(really expensive) and so far the ammonia still at 4.0ppm, and nitrate is 0.0ppm? What am I doing wrong, what can I do to improve and get better bacteria growth? I am quite annoyed at the fact that the nitrate is 0.0ppm.

Please help, I really want to get some tropical fish in there soon!

Thanks,

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Stop using the stabilizer. Let it go naturally.

+1 Beneficial bacteria occurs naturally in the water when there is ammonia. Adding unnecessary chemicals will just throw everything out of wack. As long as there is ammonia and enough surface area, there will be beneficial bacteria. Would probably help to STOP feeding the goldfish too lol. Think about it this way: if you stop feeding, the bacteria colony will grow large enough to nitrify 4.0ppm worth of ammonia and it will be able to handle initial light feeding when you have your fish in there. If you have 4.0ppm AND you're adding MORE waste constantly, the bacteria won't be able to catch up in time because by the time it nitrifies the 4.0, there will be more produced from the new rotting food/ waste. Stop the feeding for a few days and wait for the ammonia to drop naturally.

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:sml1:, I will post the name and the videos of the ultra rare fish once I have him inside the tank. Lol.I need to sort out why my tank reading are so high. I haven't really cycle a sump before. I normally just plug and play with external filters.

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Do a water change and vacuum as much of the existing waste as you can. There will still be ammonia in the water, but it should be less than 4.0 after adding fresh water. After that, stop feeding until the ammonia drops down to 0.0. I suspect that there is so much waste inside the system at the moment that the bacteria is taking a really long time to catch up to the bioload. If memory serves, goldfish are waste machines, so 10 overfed goldies must be a really big bioload for a newly cycling tank.

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If your two external filters were already cycled, you shouldn't have had to cycle again.

Yeah, I found that strange as well.. Unless somehow during the transition they died off? Maybe the temperature change was too great or they were anaerobic for too long?? :dunno:

Oh, and Fishie, why don't you just buy 2x 300W heaters rather than running FIVE heaters? You're using the same amount of power, but it'll free up more sockets for other things or just make your socket a bit safer lol.

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Oh, and Fishie, why don't you just buy 2x 300W heaters rather than running FIVE heaters? You're using the same amount of power, but it'll free up more sockets for other things or just make your socket a bit safer lol.

That's probably not going to be enough, I've got a 300W and a 200W in my 800 litre tank and it just manages to keep it at 24.5C when they're set at 27.

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That's probably not going to be enough, I've got a 300W and a 200W in my 800 litre tank and it just manages to keep it at 24.5C when they're set at 27.

INSULATE! I put 30mm poly around my tank last week and the results are fantastic! My tank temperature used to be at least 4 degs lower than the heater setting. Now it is only about 2 degs lower and the temperature is more consistent. Before insulation, the temperature would drop if it was a cold day or whenever the sun set, now it's always running at 28deg day and night. My two heaters used to run all the time, but now my 150W runs most of the time while my 300W is only on occasionally - but the temperature remains constant, so I'm happy lol. A 2.4mx1.2m piece of 30mm poly cost me $25 at Mitre10 and they cut it to my dimensions for another $2. Best $27 I've ever spent on my tank.

Don't you already have a tank running somewhere? Aren't you able to use existing media, filters and water to give it a kick start?

He is already using two established canister filters but somehow the BB isn't catching up..

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