is it too late to add bacteria to cycle?

[scriptwiz05]

Ive had my tank with fish in it for about 2 months now and its still not cycled. i recently had a problem with ich and a lot of them died off but i think i have that under control now. I understand you are supposed to get a major spike when tank is almost cycled. the problem is, I havent gotten it yet in 2 months and i have to go out of town next week for a week and dont want the spike to occur while im gone and kill off my remaining fish. can i get some bacteria to start it up right away? what sohould i do?

nitrite .2
am .5
ph 7.2
80 degrees
55 gal

[zackish]

That's pretty bad levels. I would do a water change immediately if you have fish in it. Try to get some seachem's stability just make sure it is refridgerated at your LFS.
Also, if you know anyone that has a tank already established you can use some of their gravel or throw their filter in your tank.

[MeganL3985]

Seachem Stability is not refridgerated

[scriptwiz05]

those are the readings after i just did a 50 percent water change a few hours ago, i need to do another? and what about the bacteria? is that the seachems?

[CAF]

It is never too late to add bacteria to the tank. With that being said there are a lot of products out there that can help. I prefer the Bacter Boost by Marc Weiss Co. However SeaChem's Stability is a good product as well.

[Lady Hobbs]

You list your readings as:
nitrite .2
am .5
ph 7.2
80 degrees
55 gal

2.0 nitrites is high and 5.0 ammonia is high. You give your reading as .2 and .5 (which I assume to be .50 ammonia and .25 in nitrites.) If that's the case, then your levels are not too high but understand please that any reading for ammonia is toxic. But you have to have some in order for your tank to cycle.

Generally adding fish to a 55 gallon will not give you really high readings due to the amount of water you have in there. Unlike a 10-20 gallon with less water. It looks to me as your tank is cycling and as the ammonia starts to decline, the nitrites will go up. Then those will also go down and both ammonia and nitrites will be 0.

To hold the ammonia down some, feed sparingly....once every other day is fine or only once a day but a very small amount. More food=more poop=more ammonia. Also make sure you remove any that die right away as again, dead fish=ammonia.

I think by the time you go away, your tank should be near done for you.

I don't know how the other products work but I have read that Bio-Spira needs to be added to the tank the same time as the fish. It is useless if there are already levels of ammonia present. The other products would probably help you, tho, but it looks to me as it's on it's way to cycling without it.

[msjinkzd]

To hold the ammonia down some, feed sparingly....once every other day is fine or only once a day but a very small amount. More food=more poop=more ammonia. Also make sure you remove any that die right away as again, dead fish=ammonia.


I agree, I think biospira would be your best bet, but do a very large water change before you add it (so ammonia is as close to 0 as you can get it). This may give it a chance to work without it being immediately killed by your ammonia levels. Good luck!

[A340]

If you have not added any other type of water treatment or chemicals (medications) I would buy a bottle of Stability (it's not refrigerated and doesn't need to be) and add the appropriate dosage for the appropriate time given on the bottle's instructions.

In a nutshell, what it'll do is add the bacteria to your tank/filter quicker in order to break down the ammonia/nitrites your fish are producing into nitrates and so on and so forth while protecting your fish from the ammonia/nitrite spikes thus reducing the stress.

However, from what I understand, you also have a problem with Ich, if you have any medications in the tank, I would suggest you do a water change first and clean out the filter before you add the Stability. It shouldn't have any adverse affects on the medication, but that's what I would do.