We've had our tank for about a month now, and still the ammonia level is rather high. (4.0 mg/l). We've done 20% water changes almost every other day and still it remains high. Help!

hOW BIG IS THE TANK and how many fish have you got in there?

What is the Ph of the water and what filters are you using?

ron

The aim is to cultivate microorganisms that push the nitrogen through ammonia - nitrite - nitrate. Since they can double in number every 20 minutes you are either short on bugs or food for the bugs, I suspect the latter. What do you have in the tank?

He might also have too big a load for the bugs to ever catch up with.

We need tank size and what is in it. What filter are you using?

OK... I have a 34l tank.

In it i have 2 kuhlis, 2 bristlenoses and 1 gourami.

Its an AquaOne AR 380. The filter is one of those carbon filter thingy with noodles at the bottom of it

that load doesnt seem to high to me, are you feeding much?? all those fish other then the gourami will feed themselfs on algae etc so you only need to add a tiny bit of food

thats right. i suspected that as well. am feeding it a tiny bit now.... will see what happens in a few days

When should BenAKL biff out the carbon and add more noodles?

My best guess is that your tank has never "Cycled" which means building the bacteria in the filter to turn your ammonia into nitrites then into nitrates (plant food). Ease up on the water changes and add a product called Cycle or Stress Zyme. If a nice local fish person is willing to help out they can contribute some filter media to add to yours to get it sorted. Good luck!

sometime soon I would think.

Other thing to do, if you want to kickstart your filter some, see if some nice person with an established tank and heaps of noodles will swap you a few. Best way to get things thriving in my opinion

cycle doesnt work at all, its not refridgerated so contains no beneficial bacteria at all (im not sure if it comes with some but theyd soon die from pollution or starvation as the refridgeration makes them lie dormant), cycle is meant to cycle your tank instantly i think and it wont thats for sure. i think the stress zyme may be to feed the bacteria? the only product i know of that can almost instantly cycle your tank would be bio-spira which isnt available in nz.

because you are doing the water changes you may be slowing down the cycle (not sure how to convert m/l to ppm) but you just have to do extra work to keep your levels in check, water changes do that but it doesnt seem to be working in your case? you dont have ammolock in there do you or anything else like that? what are your nitrite and nitrate readings? i agree with misnoma, see if you can borrow some gravel or even better filter media from a person with a HEALTHY tank and that should get things moving.

hope it works out for ya

I've used good old garden dirt to kick-start the cycling process. Lets face it, the same denitrification goes on in the garden. Apart from making the water dirty for a short time it seems to work really well... You need the moist dirt from 25mm or so under the surface - where the air still gets to so the bacteria are aerobic and not anaerobic.

I have found best way to cycle tank is to buy some feeder fish from the LFS and chuck them in there for a week or two. If they dont die your tank is cycled. I dont believe in Chemically fixing a tank as it stuffs up the natural balance in the tank. As well as killing any good bacteria in the tank as well.

The only chemical I will add is about a tablespoon of PH Up to my tank once every 3-6months and maybe a bit of Melafix which is to fix the fish not the tank.

Steer away from the chemicals as your fishand good bacteria wont like them and your bad bacteria will love them.

I used Cycle once...and I'll never use it again...I followed the directions...but still, I think I had more problems using it then I would have...if I didn't use it

thanks everyone for their advice.

I'll ease up on the water changes and see what happens.

No, the tank has not been cycled before. It's a new tank. Guess it would take a couple of weeks more.

Like I said originally, if you have ammonia the nitrifying bacteria are not doing their job properly. Cycling is about getting the system going properly to complete the nitrogen cycle. I do it the old fashioned way like granddad use to do. Set up the tank to grow plant, including silt to feed the plant (which will contain some nitrifying bacteria. This makes a user of the nitrate end of the equation,then add fish very slowly to produce the urea for the ammonia and then nitrite. Any of the natural suggestions will work if you give the cycle time to reach a balance. You have a small tank so things can get out of balance easily as you have little of the "buffering" you have in a large tank.

thanks