Help!! I am a newbie here and need some advice. I have been trying to cycle a 15 gallon Eclipse tank with 2 telescopes (i know, I know) for about 2 months. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to cycle the tank before putting the fish in, since they were both in a horrible situation (1/2g. bowl, yikes!) One of them was completely black from ammonia poisoning and they both had fungus infections. The pet store was out of BioSpira and I was told I could use Stress Coat instead to help cycle the tank. The infection cleared up after the meds, however, one of the fish did lose an eye ( he cut the infected eye on something). They seemed to bounce back no worse for the wear.

However, it is 2 months later and the tank is still not cycled. It still has very high ammonia and still no nitrites. I have been testing daily with a kit and even have one of those ammonia alert shields in the tank. I have been doing daily water changes, syphoning the bottom, using a water conditioner, Stress Coat and even salt. What am I doing wrong?

Now the one fish is sitting on the bottom of the tank in the corner. I have never seen him do this before, even when he was at his worst. I did notice he is missing maybe 1 or 2 scales. Other thank that, he is perfectly healthy looking. He acts normal when you get close, fins unclamped, healthy appetite. I also posted this probelm on another thread for diseases.

Any help would be truely appreciated. I would hate to lose either of the fish after all of this. My 6 year old would be devastated!!! Thanks so much!!

I know you know...your tank is overstocked. How often & how much of water changes do you do to bring the ammonia down? Also, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's very difficult to cycle a tank under 20 gallons, esp. if it's even a tad overstocked. I've heard of people spending much longer than 2 months cycling a tank to no avail. I'm glad to hear the fish are doing much better in proper care from you....I've never seen an ammonia burn as bad as you've described, horrible.
Kristin

As the rule of thumb goesl, 1fish per......you know
Its kind of hard to cycle a tank that small without doing mucho water changes
and feeding them less. Even then,the ratio of their poop and pee to the filtered water is too great. The Eclipse is a nice tank but the size you have will be difficult to cycle. If you had a twenty. it probably have been cycled by now.

How much water are you changing and how often?
ALso how often do you feed your fish? I'd cut it down to once a day and keep that quite a smalll meal (say as much as they can eat in 2 mins and no more) which will limit the amount of ammonia produced. The lack of food will do them less harm than the ammonia!

I have an Eclipse 15, and have found that it is woefully under designed to support a cycle. The larger Eclipse models have two biowheels at least, but the 15 has only one. This is the sole source of beneficial bacterial. There is no place for more.

I got some filter quality lava rock (or ceramic tubes if you wish) and put them in a net bag on top of the filter cartridge. As the water flows through this, it will populate and add a whole lot more surface area for your cycle.

I have also added bags of media to the tank floor when the tank is occasionally overstocked. This helps, also.

Good luck. Until you get it going, water change water change water change. You might even consider using a product such as Amquell + for a short time, simply to give your poor fish a break!

Thanks so much to all of you!!!!!! I have been doing between 25% to 45% water changes daily, and will continue to do so. Thanks for all the great tips. I will get some Amquel and try the lava on the filter.

Thanks again!