I just added two media baskets to my penguin 350. I decided that since I was having ammonia propblems again (courtesy of a 3 hour power outage) so I decided to add Ammo-Chips/Zeolite to the media baskets. I just read another post of this board (Diagnosis/Discussion) that said you shouldn't use Ammo-Chips/Zeolite when your tanks cycling because it inhibits the growth of bio-bugs. Should I ditch the ammo chips?
My media baskets are in the very front of my fiter, just before the water goes through the bio-wheels. Does this make a difference?
Currently, my ammonia is .50-1.0 and my pH is 7.2-7.4 (i use amquel +, so that ammonia might be off). My tank, a 29 gallon, has been set up for a little over a month but has yet to move from the ammonia stage of the cycle.
I'm concearned about the ammonia because one of my two fantails is suffering from ammonia burns again (thank you power outage).
So do I get rid of the Zeolite? What else can I do to get my tank cycling a little faster?

Thanks!

~ Jessica

The problem comes if the zeolite sucks up all the ammonia leaving none for the biobugs to eat. As long as you're still seeing ammonia, the zeolite should be ok to use to reduce but not eliminate ammonia. I'd probably move it out into the tank under the outflow of the filter so it's not in front of your filter media. The second potential problem with zeolite is if you salt the tank, it releases ammonia back into the water.

With your pH, I'd try and keep ammonia below 2ppm. see
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html

What ammonia test are you using? Is it a two bottle test?

There's a product called biospira from marineland that will get you cycled in around a week.

Adding gravel or filter media from a cycled tank would speed things up.

Potting a plant (like an amazon sword) with an inch of topsoil covered by gravel should also help cuz the soil contains nitrifying bacteria. If you have enough light, fast growing plants like hornwort or anacharis can help by bring in nitrifying bacteria, plut they help suck up ammonia.

Adding a dose of calcium bentonite clay may also bring in nitrifyng bacteria. In one tank where I used a topsoil substrate and lots of plants it was instantly cycled.

Oh no, your fish got burns from that level of ammonia?

Dataguru has given you lots of good info on speeding up the cycle. The gravel thing is good and I've read many positive things abot Biospira. (Never tried this Biospira myself though)

As for me, I don't try and speed things up. I normally just tough it out with really frequent water changes when ammonia gets highish.

You could try and change the water a bit more. I generally try not to add too many things to my tank water because it costs me money and I don't understand what's going on with most of these things

That's my tuppence worth.

Slugger

Thank you for your help.
Ok so maybe salting my tank and using zeolite is a bad combo. Guess I'll hold off on the salt. I'm going to try to get some biospira & see if that'll get things moving. I've been doing 50% water changes every day or every other day, but its just not making a big enough impact.
Yes data, I use the two bottle Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Ammonia test. I know it can give false readings, but where Neptune has ammonia burns I figured that's more than enough evidence.
Unfortunately, I don't know anyone with a cycled tank.
I wanted to plant my tank but I was afraid there would be a problem because it hadn't cycled.

Thanks again for both for your help.

~ Jessica