I have been cycling my freshwater aquarium since december and i do not understand why. I understand it can take up to 8 weeks but this is getting ridiculous. I started out with corydoras 2 at a time they did ok i went through around 5 or 6 of those. It turned out that everytime i had two one died so i stopped and stayed with one i would do water changes everytime it got past .5 and they died. then i decided to try a black moore (not the smartest idea but it was worth a shot it only lasted one day! now i have an oscar which is doing very well but my levels are pretty high. I have tried everything from water changes (not with the oscar i want him to live!) to amquel and ammo lock NOTHING is working and i am starting to get extremely irratated with it. does anyone know what i could do to maybe hurry the cycle along or why it wont finish.

the tank is 29 gallons (getting a bigger one he is only 3 inches)
ammonia-4.0
nitrite-0
nitrate-20
ph-6
any help would be greatly appreicated:unsure:

I think it should have cycle by now, it's a very small tank, five weeks is more than adequate. I think you know that 29 gallons is too small for one Oscar. Okay, your readings are rather odd. The nitrate reading would indicate that you have got some kind of biological filter, even if it isn't completely established. The ammonia is absolutely deadly at the moment, are you absolutely sure it's 4.0? I'm not surprised any fish survive if it's that high all the time. Okay, first thing is first, you need to answer a few questions. How often and how much water are you changing? Are you using a water conditioner to remove the chlorine everytime you do change? Have you been cleaning the filters at all? How much food do you put in every day and are you removing any uneaten food?

Remember that products like ammo Lock don't actually remove ammonia, they convert into a non-toxic form. So when you do a test, you will still get an ammonia reading. The filtration will deal with this non-toxic form the same as it would with the toxic threat that word. Also, I you absolutely sure you are carrying out all the tests correctly. Nitrate is especially important, if you don't shake the bottle/vile for the correct amount of time, you often get false readings. Ammonia isn't so critical. Have you been cleaning out the vials in between changes? Okay, if you could possibly answer these questions, we may be able to help you

yeah im sure possibly 2.0 but i am almost positive its 4.0

i no longer do water changes because everytime i did them my fish died i wait until around 20% evaporates and then add the new water (which has nothing but metals in it but i have stuff to get rid of that) this happens once every two to three weeks.

i change the cartridge every 2 weeks.

i feed him twice a day occasionally a piece of ham or pea and i usually remove the uneaten food at night.

yes i rinse the vile after every test i do take the appropriate measures for all the tests.

Have you tested your tap water maybe its not the best. What sort of filtration do you have.

I cant explain you odd readings. What i would do if i was you would be to buy 6 zebra danios and return the oscar(the shop may hold it for you), clean the filter and only do a water change if the nitrates go above 40, no water changes otherwise. Once the filter has cycled then buy the oscar you want and rehome the danios (otherwise they will end up as food)

IMO i think the water coming out yr tap is possibly bad test yr tap water and see if u could borrow as much content from a cycled tank and stick it yr tank and see if it cycles