Hi
My tank has been cycling now for 41/2 weeks. Nitrite is 0 (mg/L) Nitrate 5.0 (mg/L) and amonia (1.0mg/L) I keep having to do 20% water changes every other day to stop the amonia getting higher. When will it come under control ? I have one goldfish in a 10 gallon tank. Could I be slowing the cycling process by doing water changes? However, I am concerned for fishes welfare as I can't seem to get amonia to zero. <_<

You are most likely drawing out the cycling process by doing water changes, but there is no other way to get the fish through it safely (well, reasonably safely). Just be patient and keep up what you are doing. If your tank is staying pretty cool, you might get a heater and up the temp to ~75-78, that will speed up cycling some. Add an airstone if you do though.

indeed, the cycling process cannot prceed smoothly for there are too much disturbance to it..

you may want to leave the ammonia at 1 - 1.5 or even 2.. but you have to reduce feeding during this period of time.. temperature plays a part, and so is air supply.. bacteria needs air too.. so add air stone will help..

fish will be hungry, but resist the temptation to feed.. otherwise you will have to change water once again..

by the way, when you change water, do you treat/age the water before adding them in?? if not, the chlorine will destroy all the already developed bacteria too...

Thanks for the advice- it was very helpful. I will warm up the tank a little (it does have a heater in it)and add an airstone. Yes, I do treat the water to get rid of Chlorine first. How long do you think it will take?

Try and not get dicouraged. It took my tank close to 12 weeks to cycle. It just finished. I've had it going since March. I battled ammonia for 4 or weeks. Then I have been battling high nitrites until yesturday. I'm so glad it is over.

Laurie

It took my original 10g 6 and a half weeks to cycle, with it staying ~78-82 the whole time (no heater, our AC just sucked). Took my 2.5g betta tank 4 weeks to cycle. 29g was basically insta cycled with the stuff from the 10g, had a 3 day nitrite spike of 0.25 a week and a half after being set up and that was it. 10g, cleaned and resetup, with a handful of gravel from the 29g took about 2 weeks to cycle nitrites (ammonia cycled with no spikes), with 6 glowlight tetras and 6 white cloud minnows (all very small fish) in it.

So the time a tank can take to cycle can vary by a lot. I should note with the ten gallon and goldies I was doing 50% water changes at least every other day to keep my levels down, and it did still cycle in time, so its not like the water changes will bring things to a screeching halt.

I think it greatly depends on your filter and media. If you like to lower the harm to your fish, can I suggest you get a sponge filter coupled with a air pump. From my limited experience, the sponge filter settles down all the nasties really fast.

The ammonia has stayed under 2(Mg/L) but now the Nitrites have rocked to .50 (mg/L) from zero in 2 days. I did a water change and got Nitrites down to 0.25 (mg/L) and ammonia to 0.5 (mg/L)

I do have a sponge filter

Laurie P mentioned battling with Nitrites. Do I have to keep them at zero whilst cyclying or can my fish manage with v.low levels during the process.

Is it true that You shouldn't do wtare changes with a gravel vacumn whilst cycling aas I used this method?

Thanks everyone - from my little Goldie

Here's what I did. I connect it to a strong air pump to the filter and turn everythingelse off just the air pump and the sponge filter. Within 3-4 days, the water parameters are already settled.

After that, water change is only once a week. My other filtration equipment were turned on once the sponge settle and it took me tops 3wks for everything to be stable.

I only have nitrate to worry about.

Cheers