I've been keeping tropical fish for about 10 years now. About 4 years ago I moved to a different city. My tank crashed and I could not, for the life of me, get the thing to cycle. I put an add on craigslist looking for biological media, water, etc. And folk stepped up! It worked for a few days and then the tank crashed again. So, I'm doing water changes with spring water (sometimes every other day), moving decor in and out. My fish are living with >4ppm ammonia. After a year of this I just gave up. My fish were fine. I moved a year later to our new home and I hoped it would be better. Nope. The tank never cycled.
So, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that one of my heaters was cracked. I quickly pulled it out and put in another one. I have a ton of spare heaters, filters, whatever. A lot of the stuff I have is used as well. Now, magically, my tank is cycled. I suspect it has been cycled all along, but something was leeching from that heater that messed with the test kit, which didn't affect the fish.
Geesh! I'm so happy to have 0ppm for ammonia.
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