Do you have a picture you can share with us?

I'd love to be able to post pictures but still can't figure out how to do it.

Nitrites are still high. I wondering if I should buy Bio-Spira? Would this work in my situation? Or what if I put a bit of Microbe-lift PL into the aquarium (I still have some left over). If it works for a pond, then why not be able to put it into the aquarium holding my pond fish? I tried to do a search on Microbe-Lift PL and aquariums but didn't get anything.

Personally, I wouldn't use chemicals to speed up the Nitrogen Cycle. All I would do is introduce a small amount (if there aren't any right now) of life to introduce waste products and let the Nitrosamonas (for ammonia) and Nitrobacter (for nitrite) bacteria do their things. I would wait it out, which shouldn't take too long.

As for posting pictures, if you have a digital camera and can upload to a site like Photobucket, they provide 3 options for posting pictures onto forums, depending upon how a given forum is set up. For Garden Web, you would copy the one called HTML Tag and paste it in the Message box. When you do the preview, your picture will appear. At what point in the picture posting process are you stuck? Feel free to Email me, by clicking the Petiolaris link and links, if you need more help.

Thanks for the info. While I wait out the cycling should I be doing 20% water changes daily, or every other day? I've read that when it gets dangerously high then I should do a water change, otherwise it would just be weekly. Is a reading of 0.8 mg/L dangerously high for a goldfish (comet)? I've asked at a aquarium/fish store about how high and how long can a goldfish take, but no one seems to have any idea.
Thanks for the details on posting a picture. I had tried it a while ago, was trying to figure out how to directly upload, then tried to upload it to Rogers Yahoo Photos for the first time. Too bad there is no way to upload it directly to this website. I'll try again following your instructions when I take more up-to-date pictures.

I would do a water change when it gets high. Trouble with water changes when cycling or applying meds is that it's a tradeoff between allowing meds to do their thing or having dirty tanks. Not sure how it affects cycling.

My experience with New Tank Syndrome has been mainly through having worked at a tropical fish wholesaler. Nearly allof our tanks had sponge filters.The very large tanks had outside filters. Whenever the sponge was faling apart or the filter media was pretty beat up, we replaced it but tried having the new filter /sponge going concurrently with the existing one, so as to build up the good bacteria before the switch was made. I learned the hard way that "good water" from existing tanks, applied to a new filter or sponge was as setup for failure / NTS. On the other hand, one could drain a tank and refill it and there would be no repercussion on the Nitrogen Cycle. We also were in a constant state of bringing fish in and moving them out and there was always meds being applied and then being weaned. We used a lot of Tetracycline, EM, Sulfa, Formaldehyde, Furazone Green,... meds that are designed to indicriminantly kille bacteria. Having cleaned the tanks on a daily basis, logically, all that medicating ought to have hurt the Nitrogen Cycle, on a daily basis. And incredibly, that never had. No matter how much bacteria killing meds we tossed in there, it never had a discernible effect upon killing the good bacteria. Consequently, we never faced NTS. Scary!

Anyhoo, retail customers who are cycling their tanks with new media always seem to battling the cycle and monitored it. We never did. So they were always dealing with cloudy tanks, with high Ammonia and or Nitrite, draining 10% on a daily basis. Don't know how much they were helping or hurting their cause, but when there are toxins, ya have to do some amount of replacing the water. Maybe it was a bandaid or maybe it just prolonged the cycle. Not sure.

In general, if replacing filter media, it's best to have an old around while the tank is cycling. And it's also best to go slowly with introducing livestock, so the Nitrosamonas bacteria doesn't get overwhelmed.

(sigh...) Nitrites are still high: 1.6+ mg/L., 0.8 after a 20% water change (still doing water changes every day or every other day). Its now just over two weeks of high nitrites...

Just in case, I looked into buying Bio-Spira, but none of the stores carry it.

I did figure out how to post my photos, so here is a pic of my goldfish in her new 20 gallon tank. (Moved her over to the final new tank 4 days ago).

{{gwi:374458}}

Thank you for sharing your pictures! Give it time. The Cycle will come around for ya.

Thanks.. Can hardly wait till the day the water is cycled (hopefully soon and not in weeks or months).

And when that day comes we'll celebrate and I'll treat my fish to a fresh earthworm!