Ammonia won't drop below 1ppm

[jdyn90]

Hello,

I am currently cycling a 10 gallon tank and have been following a few fishless cycle guides on the web. I am dosing with pure ammonia solution, and am using the API Freshwater Master Kit for testing.

Around day 10 my ammonia started dropping and I got really excited. 5 days later I did a water change and re-dosed to 4ppm ammonia. It started dropping and then stopped between 1 and 1.5 ppm. It stayed like that for a week and after much thought I did another water change and re-dosed to 4ppm yesterday.

Today, ammonia is again between 1 and 1.5 ppm while Nitrites and Nitrates are seemingly off the charts. I'm not really sure why ammonia isn't going down further. I'm trying to be patient, but this bugging me!

Here's my daily log. See if you guys can make any sense of it, and let me know if there's anything I should do differently.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LhGac6bUvuhxjVJzL3NMW8YbKIjpf_316mEgfit35_M/edit#gid=0

Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

Test some distilled water and your tap water for ammonia and see if there is any. If there is any ammonia reading in distilled water then the test kit is stuffed and needs replacing.

When you get test kits, check the expiry date and don't buy them if they are kept in a warm room or near a heat source because the heat destroys the chemicals.

If there is no ammonia in the distilled water then you need to let the filter do its thing. Make sure there is lots of aeration and keep the pH above 7.0

 

[jdyn90]

The distilled and tap water both show 0 ppm ammonia for sure. Today I checked my tank and the ammonia is between 0 and 0.25 ppm! Low pH value was likely the culprit - it was 6.4 all of last week. My water change raised it to 7.0 and things seem to be going again.

 

[jdyn90]

Wow I re-dosed ammonia to 2ppm yesterday and it is 0 today! It is like magic.

Question: I've re-dosed ammonia 4 times counting today, and my nitrites are still off the charts high. Should I keep re-dosing ammonia or should I just wait at this point for nitrites to go down?

Also, after actually reading the directions on testing nitrates it turns out my nitrates are under 5 ppm and not over 100. The key was shaking the test tube between additions of testing solution #1 and #2. Who would have though reading the directions would help

This is the difference between testing the right way and the wrong way

 

[Essjay]

If nitrite goes higher than about 15 or 16 ppm, it stalls the cycle - but our test kits only read to 5 ppm so we have no idea how high nitrite really is. Each 1 ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7 ppm nitrite so it is quite easy to add enough ammonia to push nitrite over the stall point. You mention re-dosing 4 ppm ammonia 4 times, which is 16 ppm ammonia in total. That will be turned into 43.2 ppm nitrite which is a lot more than the stall point!

Don't add any more ammonia yet.

This method explains the best way to do a fishless cycle http://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/ As you can see in that link, the amount of ammonia added to the tank is strictly controlled to keep nitrite below the stall point. The best thing you can do now is a water change to remove nitrite - a 100% water change would be the best solution, then refill and add just 1 ppm ammonia. Since you already have a lot of ammonia eaters you are already at the stage where you need to add Dose #3.


Nitrate is meaningless at this point because the tester converts nitrate to nitrite and measures that - but you also have a lot of nitrite in the water so the nitrate tester is measuring that along with nitrate.
And just to check - you are shaking nitrate bottle #2 for at least as long as the instructions say, and also shaking the tube before starting the 5 minutes timing? One of the reagents settles on the bottom of the bottle and all the shaking is necessary to get it back into the liquid.

 

[jdyn90]

Thanks for your help & advice!

You mention re-dosing 4 ppm ammonia 4 times, which is 16 ppm ammonia in total. That will be turned into 43.2 ppm nitrite which is a lot more than the stall point!

After the first 2 4ppm doses, each redose has been only 2ppm. I reduced it since I had read that re-dosing to 2ppm was better. So in total my tank has processed 12ppm ammonia. I have also done two 75% water changes since beginning this cycle. Using the 1 ammonia = 2.7 nitrite conversion you mention, I should roughly have 17-20ppm nitrite in the tank (I think).

But anyway to be safe I'll do another big water change today since it can't hurt.

And just to check - you are shaking nitrate bottle #2 for at least as long as the instructions say, and also shaking the tube before starting the 5 minutes timing? One of the reagents settles on the bottom of the bottle and all the shaking is necessary to get it back into the liquid.

Yes I have always shook the bottle #2 for 30 seconds before. I didn't shake the tube much before reading the directions yesterday. The api manual actually says to shake the tube after adding bottle #1 as well. That step made a big difference for me.

Edit: that's interesting about how the nitrate test converts to nitrites first and then measures. That means my nitrate test should read around 20ppm or so if I do it correctly. Well, as you say it doesn't really matter at this point so I will just ignore that test's readings haha.

 

[jdyn90]

Day 35 Update:

My cycle is nearly complete. ~3ppm ammonia and corresponding nitrite are being processed into nitrates in just over 24 hours. In retrospect I think I had 2 "stalls":

1. Day 18: My pH had dropped to around 6.4 and ammonia stopped dropping. Adding 1tsp of baking soda to get pH above 7.0 started things up again.

2. Day 33: Nitrites were off the charts (above 5ppm) and I believe this prevented the nitrite consuming bacteria from forming. I did 3 water changes to get nitrites to 2ppm and literally the next morning the nitrites were gone.

I'm going to be running the cycle for a few more days then visiting the lfs to get some fish! Thanks everyone for your help and I hope the notes help future cyclists in need.