No progress on QT cycle?

[StrangeDejavu]

In a bit of a pickle and hoping someone can help me make the right call. I made the mistake of adding a fish straight to my DT about a month ago. It had flukes and died pretty quick. I treated the DT and set up a QT that night. I filled it with newly mixed saltwater, packed an AquaClear HOB with nothing but media and dosed 4ppm ammonia. That was about 3.5 weeks ago, and the tank has made absolutely no progress since then. It does appear to be in the middle of a bacterial bloom, but I figured i'd start to see even a smidgen of nitrite by now. Would it be a bad move to take rock rubble from my fuge to jump start the QT cycle? Or should I just be patient?

 

[pmrossetti]

You could try a bacteria in a bottle to speed it up. Seachem, Dr Tim, Tetra, etc.
I've used them successfully.

If its a small tank just do water changes.

 

[gone fishin]

I don't see where it would hurt anything to put some of your rubble in the DT to help get things moving. good luck just my two cents

 

[StrangeDejavu]

I bought the smallest bottle of Dr. Tim's at my LFS for this tank, which was for 30 gallons. The QT is only 10g, so I dumped all of it in, figured it would only help. Think I got a bad batch because the last bottle I used to cycle my 40g had it cycled in 18 days with dry rock. No such luck this time.

And I wasn't sure if rubble in the QT would be a no-no with the risk of ich. Might go that route and treat as if they had ich anyway.

 

[Dundermifflin]

Dr. Tim's One and Only will have it ready inside four hours. I use this all the time to cycle my QT and have had great success.