Fishless Cycling . . . Did It Stall?

[jdubs]

Hi All!
 
I am currently doing a fishless cycle (my third time).   It is a 10 gallon and I was able to use some mature media from an existing tank. 
 
I was following the fishless cycle guide and everything was going well.  About a week ago I finally got 0ppm Ammonia and 0ppm Nitrite and 80+ppm Nitrate.  After that I added another full dose of Ammonia.  When I tested 24 hours later again I got 0ppm Ammonia and 0ppm Nitrite.  So then I did a major water change to reduce the Nitrate (about 3/4 change).   I added Ammonia again to test it and the Ammonia quickly goes down to 0ppm after 24 hours.  The Nitrite has climbed back up to 5+ppm and has not dropped.  Nitrate has climbed back up to 80-160ppm.
 
Did I do something wrong with the water change?
 
 

 

[the_lock_man]

Did you use dechlorinator?

 

[jdubs]

Did you use dechlorinator?

I used Seachem Prime, cause I thought . . . "Hey, I'm going to be adding my fishes!"

 

[becketlady]

No, I never have as I have well water. I heard about it. 

 

[the_lock_man]

 

Did you use dechlorinator?

I used Seachem Prime, cause I thought . . . "Hey, I'm going to be adding my fishes!"
 

 
OK, I wondered if you'd knocked out the n-bacs colony with chlorine. You didn't change any of the filter media? You didn't scrub the media?

 

[jdubs]

I didn't change anything in the filter, but I did scrub the sides of the tank because they felt slimey.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It takes more chlorine than likely comes from the tap to wipe out established bacteria. There is something amiss with these numbers. It is not easy in a tank to harm one of the nitrifying bacs and not the other.
 
When you got the 0/0 readings after adding the 3 pm, your tank was cycled. I can not explain how you are getting the 0/5+ reading now, it makes no sense. Can you please retest to be sure?
 
I really don't care about the nitrate as much as the the ammonia and nitrite levels. For good measure can you report your pH, KH and tenk temp as well as some detail about your cycle up until your starting this thread.

 

[jdubs]

So I retested, which I actually have done many, many times because I think I am addicted to it.  Anyways . . .  Ammonia 0, Nitrite 5+, PH 7.4-7.8.  I dont have a kit for KH.  Tank temp is 85F. 
 
As far as the cycling steps I pretty much followed the instructions on this website.   I can add that this is the fourth week and that as anyone who does fishless cycling . . . I waited and waited and waited and waited for the nitrite to drop and when it did two days in a row I thought I was good.    Besides wiping down the sides of the tank I can't think of anything I might have done.
 
Don't I need to continue to add Ammonia to keep the bacteria that eats that fed?  How much, snack or full dose? 
 
At this point I guess I am just going to keep going as if it never went to 0ppm for Nitrites, but needless to say I am very disappointed. 

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Do not add ammonia for now and drop the temp to about 80F. But lets try something here.
 
Go to a local supermarket or all purpose pharmacy type store and grab a gallon of distilled water. Not mineral or spring, distilled.
 
You need a clean measuring cup and a clean glass. Collect from the tank 1/2 cup of tank water. Add to this 1/2 cup of the distilled water. Now use this mixture as the water for testing for nitrite. If you get a reading under 5, multiply it by 2 to know the actual ppm. Then in 2 days add a 1 ppm snack and start testing nitrite daily. Ammonia should not read for long so don't bother testing it for now. Just follow the ending directions for cycling and doing the 3 ppm cycling tests again. However, if the reading is still off the charts (a solid 5.0), do the following.
 
Pour out the water in the measuring cup into the glass and then return enough to be 1/2 cup. To this add 1/4 cup of distilled water. This means you will have 1/3 tank water and 2/3 distilled water in the cup which will be 3/4 full. Now do a nitrite test using this water. If the result is under 5, multiply it by 3 to know the actual ppm in your tank. In 3 days add a 1 ppm snack and begin testing just nitrite daily. Follow the ending directions for cycling and doing the 3 ppm cycling tests again. However, if this test is still off the charts (a solid 5.0), do this.
 
Change as much water as you can. After refilling, test for nitrite. It should be under 5. If not change more water to get it under 5. Then wait for it to drop. Test every other day for nitrite. If the 2nd time you test ammonia is 0, add enough for 1 ppm as a snack and then keep waiting and now test daily. Ammonia should vanish fast and when nitrite hits .25 ppm or less, do the 3 ppm ammonia addition test. You will be at a point in the directions where you can follow them again as written.
 
The reason for all this is I would like to be sure your nitrite is not over 16 ppm. If it is it is messing things up. If it is not is should settle out in some number of days.
 
Incidentally, if you check the directions they say when you added to 3 ppm and got that 0/0 and did the water change, the next step was to add fish. Instead you added 3 ppm again. Next, using media from a cycled tank changes how you are supposed to do the cycle. Seeding a tank reduces the time involved. In the Suggestion part of the article it says:
 
If you can add gravel or filter media from a healthy cycled tank, it will accelerate the process. The more you can add, the more it will help. If you can do this, reduce the time between testing from every 3 days to every 2 days. Test on days 3, 5, 7, 9 etc. Then reduce the every 2 day testing to every day.
 
Did you do this? Also did you keep a record of your test results and ammonia dosing amounts (include how many ml you added) and when. Also, what strength ammonia are you using? It is hard to try and diagnose where a tank is during a cycle without knowing how it got there.
 
If you think about what you have reported it is basically this:
 
Started to cycle with some additional bacteria. Dosed ammonia etc.
Saw ammonia drop to 0 indicating enough ammonia bacs present to handle ammonia.
Saw nitrite rise and then drop to 0 or almost 0, indicating enough nitrite bacs present to handle almost all the nitrite.
Dosed ammonia to test if the tank was cycled. Got 0/0 readings in 24 hours indicating the tank was cycled.
 
All of this was perfect. Your tank showed as being fully cycled You changed the water, not something that would kill only nitrite bacs and not the ammonia ones or remove either. Cleaning the glass would not have this effect either. Most of the bacs are in your filter and on the gravel and decor. They, and other tank bacs, all live in the same bio-film they create. What wipes out one also harms the other. So if the ammonia bacs are still there, what happened to all the nitrite bacs that were also there? Your tank was cycled, you changed the water and the tank was cycled for ammonia but no longer cycled for nitrite. Not possible. Something is fishy.
 
But what is important is getting things back on track and finished and the above nitrite testing should do that along with the other info I asked for. Of course before going out and getting the distilled water etc., test for nitrite, maybe it has dropped back under 5. If it has, dose the snack in 2 days and when 0/.25 cross fingers and do the 3 ppm again.

 

[the_lock_man]

It takes more chlorine than likely comes from the tap to wipe out established bacteria.

 
I appreciate that, but these are not established bacteria, hence my question.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

lock- even if your point was essentially correct, and in this case I am not sure it is. The established media used at the start certainly was established and the new bacteria had tine to be making more bio-film, But aside from that the chlorine theory fails since if it killed one type of bac, it would have also gotten the other. How would your chlorine idea cause the ammonia bacs to be perfectly unharmed and most of the nitrite bacs to be harmed or killed? That alone would indicate chlorine wasn't the cause.

 

[jdubs]

OK, tested again this morning and nitrite still high.  Did the 1/2 distilled and 1/2 tank water and still looked high enough that I couldn't be sure of the reading.  Did the 2/3 distilled and 1/3 tank water and nitrite is looking like it is around 5-6ppm.  
 
As far as the third ammonia test of the tank once it was considered cycled (0/0 reading two days in a row), I guess I just thought if it was cycled properly it shouldn't have had any trouble process the ammonia.
 
Side note, I did a 1/4-1/3 water change my 16 gallon tank on the same day as the 10 gallon tank.  I tested the parameters the next day and they looked beautiful.  

 

[TwoTankAmin]

jdubs- did you follow the rest of the suggestion where I wrote if you do the 1/3 test and you still read a solid 5, to do the big water changes? If the 1/3 strength reading was 5 that meant you were looking at about 15 ppm and if the reading was actually 5.5 it meant you were at a point where the bacteria was being harmed or killed.
 
But here is what baffles me. I wrote the cycling instruction in such a way as to make it impossible for one to have nitrite readings as high as you are reporting as long as those directions were followed to the letter. Moreover, if one is able to use seeding, as you did, it was even more impossible. If you were correct when you reported 0/0 then you should realize that 3 ppm of ammonia, in the complete absence of any bacteria to convert any nitrite to nitrate, could only create a maximum of 2.55 times the ammonia. So 3 x 2.55 = 7.6 ppm of nitrite. You're diluted test is showing 15 or more ppm or twice what is possible.
 
Only a very few things can explain the results:
 
1. The test kits is wrong, either because it is faulty or you are doing the tests wrong.
 
2. The amount of ammonia dosed is more than you state because you over dosed. You may have miscalculated the tank volume, measured it wrong or it is stronger ammonia than you think.
 
It is also possible to calculate the amount of nitrate that should result from any given level of ammonia dosing, as long as it is in an unplanted tank. All of these calculations are based on the atomic weights of the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Because the test kits read total ions, there is always an increase in the number of ppms at each stage of the nitrogen cycle.
 
Ammonia is NH4- that is one nitrogen and 4 hydrogen. N has a weight of about 14 and hydrogen of 1 for a total of 14 + (4x1)   = 18
Nitrite is NO2-       that is one nitrogen and 2 oxygen. N has a weight of about 14 and Oxygen of 16 for a total of     14 + (2x16) = 46
Nitrate is NO3-      that is one nitrogen and 2 oxygen. N has a weight of about 14 and Oxygen of 16 for a total of     14 + (3x16) = 62
 
So as you can then see ammonia at 18 become nitrite at 46.    46/18 =2.55  1 ppm of ammonia becomes 2.55 ppm of nitrite.
One ammonia at 18 becomes nitrate at 62. 62/18 = 3.44                                1 ppm of ammonia becomes 3.44 ppm of nitrate.
Of course one nitrate at 46 becomes one nitrate at 62, 62/46 = 1.34.             1 ppm of nitrite becomes 1.34 ppm of nitrate.
 
If one adds ammonia and there are nitrite converting bacs present as well as ammonia ones, some of that nitrite is being converted as soon as it appears. This means it will never reach the full 2.55 times level because some of the nitrite is being turned to nitrate even as that nitrite is being made by the ammonia bacs. Where all this helps us is in knowing what results may or may not be within the realm of possibility. So what I have been looking at are the numbers being reported by jdubs and then doing the math.
 
The first post had nitrate at 80+ ppm with 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite. Then a full dose of ammonia was added which should have been 3 ppm worth. 24 hours later there was again 0/0 in the tank. We can determine how much nitrate this should have made at  3 x 3.44 = 10+ ppm. Plus there was 80 -100 ppm left over. So there should then have been about a total of 90 - 110 ppm of nitrate in the tank.
 
At that point a 75% water change was done which should have reduced the nitrate from 90 - 110 to between about 22 and 28 ppm of nitrate in the tank. And then came the final 3 ppm ammonia dose. The ammonia was gone in 24 hours but then there was 15 ppm + nitrite as per the diluted testing. And there is the first problem. The most nitrite that 3 ppm of ammonia should make is 3 x 2.55 = 7.65 ppm, so how can there be 15+ ppm? Next, the nitrate is reported as back to 80-160 ppm. But that too is not possible. 22-28 ppm were left over after the 75% wc and 10 ppm more was created (3 x 3.44) for a total of what should have been 32 - 38 ppm. Even had that 80 -160 been 160 the water change would drop that to 40 ppm and then add the ne 10 ppm and the total still should have been only 50 ppm nowhere near the reported "back up to 80-160 ppm."
 
My point here is that the reported numbers simply do not add up, so to speak. They are not a few ppm over or under what is expected, they are 100% ot more off of what is expected, and that raises red flags.
 
Due to the laws of chemistry and biology, the process itself is pretty much set in stone. We can know, within a reasonable range, what results should be. What is variable are the accuracy of the test results and the potential for human error. I can not say why things are off here, only that they can not be as reported.
 
The challenge here is how to get things back on track. I think the first step is to get nitrites down some so they are not impeding the cycle. Then continue to monitor them. As long as the nitrite starts to drop on its own, you can be adding a 1/3 ammonia dose about every 3 days to give the ammonia bacs some food. What you do not want to do is add ammonia and have it raising nitrite into the 15+ ppm diluted test danger range.

 

[jdubs]

Sorry about that . . . yes I did the water change, about 3/4.  Retested nitrite it's at .25.  Really, It is that low!   Frankley I am surprised it would be this low when I was getting such high readings before I did the water change.
 
I don't think the kit is faulty and I don't think I did the test wrong (Nitrite is one of the easiest tests to do).  I think that maybe when I did that last dose of ammonia after the tank was cycled I must have put in too much.  This may also sound weird, but maybe my color perception is off and I am not able to properly match the test results with the color comparison chart for Nitrites (the API kit has varying shades of purples).
 
FYI- I tested ammonia as well and it is at .5ppm.  This I believe is due to the chloramine (chlorine & ammonia) that is added by our water treatment plant.
 
So I will test nitrite tomorrow am and see if it is at 0.  I will test ammonia again to see where it is at, then recalculate how much ammonia I need to bump it back to 1ppm.   This is probably where it went very wrong.  Upon further reflection I think when I cycled my other two tanks I was much more precise/careful with the ammonia than with this one.  That is no excuse, I know.  I am looking at this as a great learning experience and no fish were harmed in the process.
 
Also, I am in total awe of your knowledge and appreciate your help!  Thanks!