Need advice on cycling a 5 gallon betta aquarium

[jan]

Hi ! I have a little red betta named Blaze who has currently been living in a 1 1/3 gallon glass aquarium for three months.  Once I get his 5 gallon tank cycled, he will move into it! The problem is that it is not doing anything. Ammonia and nitrites are still at 0 on Day 9. I would appreciate your advice because I am not sure why. This is my first time!

Here are the specifics:
I have a 5 gallon glass Aqueon aquarium filled with spring water (did not add Prime), a #1 ATI sponge filter with air stone connected inside (it is bubbling well), about 1 inch of gravel covers the bottom, a number of small Matrix stones spread around on the gravel (maybe 25-30), thermometer, a 15 watt under gravel mini heater and a 7.5 watt under gravel mini heater, no plants or other fixtures yet. I don’t have a lid yet, so I cut a rectangle of plastic from an old plastic tablecloth cover for the top. (Thank you AAP for the filter and heaters and the great advice in helping me get set up as well as maintain his little aquarium!) Also, I added 1 spoonful of gravel from my betta's current small aquarium that I hope has some good bacteria on it. 

Day 1 started adding fish food twice a day (I did miss a few times). I soak about 4 pellets (Aqueon Betta Food) in a tiny cup of aquarium water. Once they are soft, I crush them finely and pour into tank.
Day 3 turned on 15 watt heater. Water temperature varies between 74 degrees F to 76 degrees F with 15 watt heater only.
Friday (today) is Day 9. I still have 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrites. I did turn the 7.5 watt heater on and the temp is now 80 degrees F tonight.

I am not sure why it won’t start cycling, so I appreciate the help. I have read about mold forming from decaying food and I don’t want to have a problem with that either since we are 9 days into this with no action. Thanks!

[Carl]

What test are you using, how old?

While I do not think the test kit is the issue, it is still something I feel needs to be asked.

You may need to add more food. Another tip (that is not in the articles), is to use a syringe or baster to slowly inject this liquified food directly into the sponge filter you are attempting to seed.
However this may even make it more quickly efficient, so that ammonia readings may not appear much if at all.

Have you checked nitrates? If your nitrates are rising (without any water changes), this may indicated your tank is cycling.

Either way, I have seen the fish food method produce very little if any testable ammonia while the nitrates rise


Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

Carl covered it well!

What's the Nitrate reading... It may have seeded already.

[jan]

Hello, I’m back to give an update on how the cycling went! Yes, my tank did cycle! It took about 37 days to cycle once I found the right amount of food to add. I apologize for the delay but I began working on your suggestions right away after the last post. Thanks for your advice! I appreciate it.
To answer Carl’s question about my test kit. It is an API Master Kit for freshwater and is only several months old.
I began watching levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates every other day and saw that my nitrates were not rising. So here is what happened:

I began to slowly increase the amount of food that I was adding to the tank and I began injecting it into the sponge filter with a baster and then I switched to a syringe. Ammonia began rising first and then nitrites decided to rise after a while. Once the ammonia was up to 2, the rest happened rather quickly, under 2 weeks. Ammonia began to drop and nitrites began to drop and nitrates began to rise. I think the substrate that I had added from the smaller tank helped. I was just too conservative in adding food in the beginning. To get it moving I had to add about 30 soaked and crushed pellets (Aqueon) in the morning and 30 in the evening. Much more than I expected.

One point: Early in the cycling, when I saw a little bit of ammonia (barely above 0), there were a little bit of nitrites. But the nitrites went back to 0 and stayed there until the ammonia got up to 2. Then they began to rise. I was thinking that maybe this was due to the small amount of substrate I had added from the small tank. In other words, the bacteria that consume the ammonia were there from the substrate, but just needed more ammonia to consume to grow. Does this sound correct?

So, Blaze is in his new tank and loving it! The first two days he swam around almost non-stop! He likes hiding under the sponge filter.

Thank you again for your advice. I appreciate you guys!
I will make sure I introduce myself as a new member and I will be posting another question about his fin tearing that has been going on. My GH/KH test kit comes in the mail today, so I want to have all of my water parameters before posting about his fin.

[devonjohnsgard]

Looks like you did a great job investagating why there was not cycle. !!!

It will be nice to have the GH & KH test. The fin tearing could be just because Blaze was in the tank during the cycle. Stable water and higher GH minerals will help.