An Interesting Topic

[miniman]

I have read a few threads where people say they have got stuck with high readings and that a water change has helped lower the levels slightly and started it back up ... below are my figures for my cycling so far - do people think i need a water change or will the nitrites drop suddenly in a few days?

 

[Majjie]

Yes - I'd say it would be worth trying a water change - because your nitrates are very high.
Can't do any harm anyway - as long as you continue to add the ammonia.

P.S - nice chart!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not really any point doing a water change IMO. it will get the nitrite down, but that won't mean the tank will have cycled, it'll still take just as long to get the bacteria there.

just stick with it and eventually they nitrite will come down

then before you add fish you do a big 90% water change, this will get rid of the nitrates, judging from your first readings your tap water has a nitrate reading of 5, once you've finished cycling it should be easy enough to keep it low with weekly water changes.

 

[thegnu]

you shouldnt see nitrate until around day 20 unless you have added some form of bacteria to help your filter along

 

[Majjie]

Course what we really need is someone to cycle two tanks at once - change the water (once the nitrate gets high) in one - and not in the other. Then we'd know!

 

[BigIan]

dO the water change....

its common for a cycle to stall, for many reasons.
simply do a partial water change and cary on as you are doing.

youir nearly there, another week or 2 and you`l ber sorted

 

[miniman]

I think i might go for about a 30% water change in the morning before I add the next batch of ammonia. Like you say It cant do much harm and It could do with a clean anyway. With the nitrites so high there should be plenty still left to keeping working and with the ammonia changing so quckly it will soon be topped up.

Im not sure why the nitrates have gone up so quickly - I did add cycle, but most people say thats a load of tosh, and I have also added some plants which are supposed to be a source of bacteria.

I was told the nitrates in the area are quite high but Im sure the first test showed them at around 5ppm - although as Ive said before I find all the test readings quite hard to judge!

 

[Darkehorse]

My tank has stalled out at 2 PPM of Nitrites as well. It's been that way for about 2 weeks. I might try a water change as well. Just curious, how did you come up with the 60, then 40, then 50 drops of ammonia? I've been cycling mine with just 10 drops (for a 20 US gallon tank) then I dropped back down to 6. Did you use the method where you actually measure the drops it takes to get to 5 PPM of Ammonia or did you use some other method?

-Darke

 

[miniman]

Hi
I just added ammonia to the tank, tested it, and by the time i got to 60 drops I was reading what looked about 5ppm. I then reduced it to 40 drops (sticky on cycling says 5-6ppm initially and then down to about 4ppm top ups - so i thought a drop of about a third of the drops would make sense) but when i tested it i decided the reading was a bit low so upped it again to 50 drops.

My ammonia is 8% i think - perhaps you have a stronger amonia than me?

 

[Darkehorse]

Hi
I just added ammonia to the tank, tested it, and by the time i got to 60 drops I was reading what looked about 5ppm. I then reduced it to 40 drops (sticky on cycling says 5-6ppm initially and then down to about 4ppm top ups - so i thought a drop of about a third of the drops would make sense) but when i tested it i decided the reading was a bit low so upped it again to 50 drops.

My ammonia is 8% i think - perhaps you have a stronger amonia than me?

Not sure (I'm at work currently so I can't look at the bottle). I used the fishless cycling instructions from a different site, which said just add 5 drops per 10 US gallons initially, then drop down to 3 drops per 10 US gallons after the ammonia reached 5 PPM. My ammonia reached 5 PPM after just one day of adding 10 drops (it's a 20 gallon tank). Perhaps my strength is greater. I need to go check it.

-Darke

 

[miniman]

Well I have done my first water change! Did about 35% and gave it a general clean up. Ive added another 50 drops of ammonia and I will test tomorrow and see whats goignon now.

I had one suprise, there i was admiring my new clean and clear tank when what did i see - my first tank inhabitants! Two minute snails on the glass! Must have hitched a ride on my plants!

On a side note Im going to be stocking corys and amano shrimp - will they snack on the snails?
I've done a bit of reading and some poeple seem to live with them others hate them - they seem quite cute really!

 

[Benauld]

Hi miniman,

From the reading around I've done on cycling, I was under the impression that you were meant to reduce the amount of ammonia added over time? This is because too much ammonia inhibits bacterial growth, so the bacteria you do have will all be nice and full (so to speak), but you won't get exponential growth of further bacteria. [BTW, can anybody correct me if I'm way off the mark here?]

As a slight aside, I've just been reading the instructions in my Nutrafin Essential Mini Master Test Kit, and in the bit about the nitrate test, in tiny lettering at the bottom of one page it says: "High levels of Nitrite will interfere with Nitrate reading." So how the hell do I know when my nitrates go up?

 

[TerraDreamer]

Im not sure why the nitrates have gone up so quickly - I did add cycle, but most people say thats a load of tosh, and I have also added some plants which are supposed to be a source of bacteria.

Adding Cycle will produce a Nitrite spike, as it happened to me. Like yours, it shot up to around 2.0. It's almost as if it killed the bacteria which consumes Nitrite. Water changes did not help the situation much and it took nearly a week for the level to drop back to zero. I tossed the bottle of Cycle into the trash and won't ever use it again. As far as I'm concerned, that product is absolutely dangerous to use. I mentioned this to my lfs (the only one I now shop at) and he nodded and simply said, "There's several reasons why we don't sell it here, and that's one of them."

Go figure.

 

[miniman]

Hi miniman,

From the reading around I've done on cycling, I was under the impression that you were meant to reduce the amount of ammonia added over time? This is because too much ammonia inhibits bacterial growth, so the bacteria you do have will all be nice and full (so to speak), but you won't get exponential growth of further bacteria. [BTW, can anybody correct me if I'm way off the mark here?]

As a slight aside, I've just been reading the instructions in my Nutrafin Essential Mini Master Test Kit, and in the bit about the nitrate test, in tiny lettering at the bottom of one page it says: "High levels of Nitrite will interfere with Nitrate reading." So how the hell do I know when my nitrates go up?

Ive tried to follow the guidlines on this forum for the cycle. I spiked the ammonia to 5ppm and once that had reduced to 0ppm I added enough to get back upto about 4ppm each day. Basically the bacteria for the ammonia needs to feed so the amount of ammonia you add is the amount of bacteria you maintain, if you kept reducing the amount of ammonia untill really low than the bacteria would die off to a low amount. I think i would rather add a bit too much and the cycle take longer but build up a good colony than not add enough and risk spikes when the fish go in.

But who knows! I'm just going to keep going until that nitrite boogers off!

Im not sure why the nitrates have gone up so quickly - I did add cycle, but most people say thats a load of tosh, and I have also added some plants which are supposed to be a source of bacteria.

Adding Cycle will produce a Nitrite spike, as it happened to me. Like yours, it shot up to around 2.0. It's almost as if it killed the bacteria which consumes Nitrite. Water changes did not help the situation much and it took nearly a week for the level to drop back to zero. I tossed the bottle of Cycle into the trash and won't ever use it again. As far as I'm concerned, that product is absolutely dangerous to use. I mentioned this to my lfs (the only one I now shop at) and he nodded and simply said, "There's several reasons why we don't sell it here, and that's one of them."

Go figure.

Thats interesting I hadnt heard that before, I thought it was just a waste of time. I only put it in becasue it was free, I dont have any more and wouldnt buy any anyway. There is obviously not loads of great bacteria in there or my tank would have cycled in a couple of days.

 

[miniman]

Hello again!
I thought I would update this post so you could see the result that the water cahnge had! It looks like my tank has cycled!

As you can see it took about 3 days after the water change for my nitrites to dissapear! Of course these results prove nothing - it could have been that the tank was ready to finish anyway, as it has taken about twice the amount of time that the ammonia took to go which is as predicted.

Now ive done a big water change and am going to contiue to add ammonia untill Monday - this is for both convinence for buying fish and also to make sure it is definately cycled and that the gastromax hasnt had some sort of affect on the readings.

Thanks for everyones help!