# Did my dirt fail to cycle the tank?



## flyrabbitfly (Dec 20, 2011)

Hi guys, 
So I have two tanks going- one 20+ gallon long with 20 or so guppies, about 7 fry, a big apple snail,a few ramshorn snails, has been set up 3 weeks. Lots of unknown plants (I don't speak the language where we live). The plants are growing. When I set it up I didn't have an ammonia test yet, but the nitrate/nitrite was fine (0 or barely testable)...I assumed that the dirt would cycle the tank, moved the fish there immediately and didn't worry about it. A couple of fish died in the first week, but these are rescued fish of all ages and I figure some of them are just old. Yesterday the fish didn't eat, the snail was clammed up and I tested the water. No ammonia whatsoever (got test in the mail a few days ago). Nitrites 3ppm, nitrates about 15ppm, temp still 75, ph was like somewhere above 8.6 out of the blue (was always right around 7.4 and yesterday was actually off the chart of my test) alkalinity 240...I lowered the ph with some vinegar and the fish ate all the food that had been floating around all day pretty much immediately... 

The second tank is about 5 gal, has a betta, an oto, a couple of red ramshorn snails, even more densely planted than the first tank. Has been set up for less than a week. Yesterday the nitrates/nitrates were pretty much nil, but the ammonia was through the roof (3?). None of the inhabitants seemed to mind. 

So the question is, if my Korean soil, of which I know nothing (bought from a nice plant lady- "very good quality" was all the info she could give me- lol)was actually sterilized, and I put all these poor fish into a cycling tank, but the plants are doing their duty and taking care of the ammonia part, should I still worry about the nitrite? Water changes in order? The plants in the little betta tank aren't growing yet, so that would be why the ammonia is high and nitrites low with no bacteria yet to make them? 
And why would the ph spike like that in the 20 gal? 
I apologize if these are stupid questions! I am generally not an unintelligent person, but this aquarium business is making me doubt that assumption... 
Probably I should just go ahead and change water.... (I did change the water on the little tank, but am avoiding it in the big one because it is so far from the sink and I am... lazy? busy in any case)


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Start doing large water changes and keep it up until ammonia and nitrites are undectable.

"Dirt" does not cycle a tank--only a thriving population of beneficial bacteria and healthy, growing plants do that. Since we don't know what was in your soil, we don't know what it is doing to the water chemistry. But it is a safe assumption that the soil is releasing large quantities of nutrients. "Very good quality" for terrestrial plants probably means way too rich for aquarium use. Heavily fertilized soil could require weeks or months to stabilize and "cycle" to become fish-safe.

If you don't have another established aquarium to put the fish in, you are in for a lot of water changes.


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## thefisherman (Nov 26, 2011)

+1 on waterchanges every couple of days not to crazy unless your nitrites are like .50+. besides if there is a nitrite spike due to cycling, you won't get below .25 for a while (ur basically diluting levels to protect the fish)

i would go to the LFS ans buy a tankful if hornwort or other nitrite sucking floater, and maybe some stresscoat as part of your wc.

6 weeks before you reach nirvana (0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate)


Sent from my iPhone


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## bortass (Jan 12, 2012)

Watch your PH as well. There is a relationship between ammonia and PH. The higher the PH, the more ammonia will be in the water. Dropping the PH in the tank also reduced the amount of free ammonia floating around. I simplified this alot but if you want the science behind it, just do a search on google.

This is reason that lower levels of ammonia are more toxic is saltwater tanks then they would be in a FW tank with a ph of 7.


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