Hi,
Perhaps some expert on the fishless cycle can make a suggestion here.
About 10 days ago, the 2nd leg of the cycle in one of my tanks dissappeared (the cause was almost certainly connected to running a UV on a new tank...all right, UV has been removed). After noticing a nitrIte spike and evacuating the fish, I ran a fishless cycle; unlike the normal situation, ammonia processing was already solidly established, but the 2nd leg was missing.
The current situation is that the nitrite->nitrate conversion seems to work, but it also seems to be weak: it takes about 12 hours for 0.5 nitrite readings to dissappear (at the end of a *normal* fishless cycle I expect about 6 hours to convert any added ammonia to nitrAtes). I thought I could speed up the cycle (==build up bacteria) by adding more ammonia once the nitrites clear, but it does not seem to do much.
Do you think the current state of the cycle is safe to move the fish back in? (of course, once the ammonia/nitrites levels go back to 0 again).
If not --- should I try to build up the nitrite cycle? (for example, by dumping a lot more ammonia, say to 4.0)
PS. One difference between what I did and the usual cycle is that I never had very high nitrite level in this cycle; it was under 1.0 for the last ten days. Possibly this is the cause that I never produced a large volume of nitrite-processing bacteria....or there is some other factor in the tank that messes up the cycle.
Thank you in advance for any advice you may offer.
Perhaps some expert on the fishless cycle can make a suggestion here.
About 10 days ago, the 2nd leg of the cycle in one of my tanks dissappeared (the cause was almost certainly connected to running a UV on a new tank...all right, UV has been removed). After noticing a nitrIte spike and evacuating the fish, I ran a fishless cycle; unlike the normal situation, ammonia processing was already solidly established, but the 2nd leg was missing.
The current situation is that the nitrite->nitrate conversion seems to work, but it also seems to be weak: it takes about 12 hours for 0.5 nitrite readings to dissappear (at the end of a *normal* fishless cycle I expect about 6 hours to convert any added ammonia to nitrAtes). I thought I could speed up the cycle (==build up bacteria) by adding more ammonia once the nitrites clear, but it does not seem to do much.
Do you think the current state of the cycle is safe to move the fish back in? (of course, once the ammonia/nitrites levels go back to 0 again).
If not --- should I try to build up the nitrite cycle? (for example, by dumping a lot more ammonia, say to 4.0)
PS. One difference between what I did and the usual cycle is that I never had very high nitrite level in this cycle; it was under 1.0 for the last ten days. Possibly this is the cause that I never produced a large volume of nitrite-processing bacteria....or there is some other factor in the tank that messes up the cycle.
Thank you in advance for any advice you may offer.
