So I'm ending the 6th week of a fishless cycle and the nitrite has spiked twice??? My biofilter can handle 4ppm ammonia in 12 hours. The nitrites have gone from well over 5ppm a week ago to about 1ppm yesterday to 5ppm today. Now I read in another topic a post by waterdrop, and if you would waterdrop please give me insight, that high nitrAte levels my give the indication of high nitrItes even if they may not be a high level. Is it cycled. Is it ready for fish??
Cycling Close To The End
- Thread starter G-skrilla
- Start date
Aqua Tom
Fish Gatherer
If you dose your tank to 4ppm.
Then test in 12 hours time & get Oppm Ammonia & 0ppm Nitite. Then your tank has come to the end of its cycle & you can start your qualifying week.
After that week is over 7 you hopefully have no blips, then you can go ahead & stock it with fish.
Then test in 12 hours time & get Oppm Ammonia & 0ppm Nitite. Then your tank has come to the end of its cycle & you can start your qualifying week.
After that week is over 7 you hopefully have no blips, then you can go ahead & stock it with fish.
SensesFail
Fishaholic
+1
D hopefully be done soon! Fingers crossed will be worth the wait! Cycled mine for 4 months lol put a huge stock in and so far so good on the test results front! Week 2moro since the fish went in.waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
hi G, are you now getting solid double-zero readings for ammonia and nitrite(NO2) at the 24-hour test?
One thing you look for is that the 24-hour tests become very consistent with not showing blips, whereas you may still be struggling to get double-zeros on the 12-hour tests.
Tom has stated the core of our procedure very clearly. We try for 4-5ppm doses at the "add-hour" to be dropped to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) when tested 12 hours after the add-hour and if the biofilter can do this for a week we know it's very solid and very unlikely to mini-spike on us after fish introduction.
Now, that being said, the process can get into a bit of a vicious little circle itself toward the very end where one keeps seeing little blips of nitrite (typically 0.25ppm) at 12 hours and it can go for weeks like that. That sort of "sticking syndrome" is not productive. While we know that eventually it -will- reach the double-zero point with extra time, we also know that most real-world stocking plans will not fully stock and these "sticking syndrome" fishless cycles will transition to a running tank with initial stock without mini-spiking. It's just a question of degree and yours doesn't, unfortunately, sound like it's down to that kind of small blipping yet. You've just reported a 5ppm nitrite spike at 12 hours if I'm reading you right.
The issue of very high nitrates(NO3) pulling the nitrite(NO2) test result artificially up is usually not consistent over a weeks worth of test results in my experience. It also seems to be a bit worse with the Nutrafin tests than the API tests. It's one of multiple reasons we sometimes do the large down-to-the-gravel water changes near the end of the fishless cycle, but that carries it's own problems in that the sudden change also can cause the bacteria to seem to "pause" in their processing for a day or two. It's all rather more ugly trying to interpret things near the end but you just have to look down a long page of daily results and hope for general trends to reveal themselves.
~~waterdrop~~
ps. (I'm very late to this thread, maybe you already have fish
)
One thing you look for is that the 24-hour tests become very consistent with not showing blips, whereas you may still be struggling to get double-zeros on the 12-hour tests.
Tom has stated the core of our procedure very clearly. We try for 4-5ppm doses at the "add-hour" to be dropped to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) when tested 12 hours after the add-hour and if the biofilter can do this for a week we know it's very solid and very unlikely to mini-spike on us after fish introduction.
Now, that being said, the process can get into a bit of a vicious little circle itself toward the very end where one keeps seeing little blips of nitrite (typically 0.25ppm) at 12 hours and it can go for weeks like that. That sort of "sticking syndrome" is not productive. While we know that eventually it -will- reach the double-zero point with extra time, we also know that most real-world stocking plans will not fully stock and these "sticking syndrome" fishless cycles will transition to a running tank with initial stock without mini-spiking. It's just a question of degree and yours doesn't, unfortunately, sound like it's down to that kind of small blipping yet. You've just reported a 5ppm nitrite spike at 12 hours if I'm reading you right.
The issue of very high nitrates(NO3) pulling the nitrite(NO2) test result artificially up is usually not consistent over a weeks worth of test results in my experience. It also seems to be a bit worse with the Nutrafin tests than the API tests. It's one of multiple reasons we sometimes do the large down-to-the-gravel water changes near the end of the fishless cycle, but that carries it's own problems in that the sudden change also can cause the bacteria to seem to "pause" in their processing for a day or two. It's all rather more ugly trying to interpret things near the end but you just have to look down a long page of daily results and hope for general trends to reveal themselves.
~~waterdrop~~
ps. (I'm very late to this thread, maybe you already have fish
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