Fishless Cycle Day 23: Nitrites At 14ppm Help!

[jnms]

I am now in day 23 of my fishless cycle and these are my readings:

Ammonia: 0.0 processing 5ppm in 12 hours
Nitrite: 14ppm !!
Nitrate: Way off the scale - Nitrite could be interfering?
Ph: 7.2

So, is this going ok or is something wrong? The Nitrite readings have been this high for about 3 days. So is this the spike I have been waiting for - or is it way to high?

 

[minxfishy]

It will eventually clear to nitrAtes, you could do a 90% w/c and re-charge the ammonia back up to 5ppm and see if that helps clear some of the nitrite.

I am however in the same place as you are, day 24 on one of my tanks and the nitrite is through the roof, has been for two weeks now, did a 95% water change and they were still through the roof!!! Its just a case of waiting for them to drop and they will - it usually happens quite quickly too.

 

[aaronnorth]

not all tanks cycle in 4 - 6weeks if that is what you are hoping for, i have heard that some have taken 12 weeks! So i would just be patient. At least your NO3 is high as it shows that it is still processing the NO2

 

[Miss Wiggle]

basically what happens is every 1ppm of ammonia that's processed makes about 3ppm of nitrite. so when you get to the point that the ABacs are there and are starting to rapidly convert ammonia to nitrite you get loads built up each day, at this point you only have a tiny colony of NBacs so they can't handle all this massive influx of nitrite so you get a backlog of nitrite.

At this point it's often beneficial to do a massive water change (95%) which clears all the nitrite away, then top the ammonia up but only to 2/3ppm. This means that there will be nitrite coming through but not in such massive amounts.

Then each day keep topping up the ammonia but only to 2/3ppm, if the nitrite climbs this high again then you can do another big water change, it certainly won't inhibit things and there is some evidence to show that water changes help at this stage of cycling.

then when the nitrite is starting to process in nearly 12 hrs top the ammonia up to 4ppm then a few days later start topping it back up to 5ppm. The ABacs will be strong enough by then to grow back to that level in no time.



certainly sounds like it's all progressing and doind what it's meant to so just stick with it.

 

[jnms]

Thanks Miss Wiggle that was a great help!!

I have done a 80% water change, now and will see how it goes. I am just about to add the 3ppm ammonia.

Thanks again, I really thought things were messing up!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no probs...... sounds like a textbook cycle to me!

 

[jnms]

So just how high will those nItrites go? Here are my readings today:

Am - 0 - (processing 3ppm in 12 hours)
Ni - 24ppm
Na - 1400ppm
Ph - 7.2

After having read a few fishless cycle diaries I honestly never expected the nitrites to get quite so high!

 

[Mr Bliss]

So just how high will those nItrites go? Here are my readings today:

Am - 0 - (processing 3ppm in 12 hours)
Ni - 24ppm
Na - 1400ppm
Ph - 7.2

After having read a few fishless cycle diaries I honestly never expected the nitrites to get quite so high!

Just in case: do you dechlorinate your tap water before adding it to the tank? Chlorine and especially chloramine could be slowing things down for you.

 

[jnms]

Thanks for the reply Mr Bliss. Yes I add enough dechlorinator for chloramine - which our water has. I haven't added any water for a few days now..and plan on letting things run their course...

Those Nitrite readings don't seem too high?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Thanks for the reply Mr Bliss. Yes I add enough dechlorinator for chloramine - which our water has. I haven't added any water for a few days now..and plan on letting things run their course...

Those Nitrite readings don't seem too high?

I would try to bring it down with a few water changes as excessive nitrite can hamper the growth of the NBacs, but it's not unheard of for it to spike like that.

 

[jnms]

Ok cheers, I just wasn't sure whether too many water changes will causes problems with the cycle. I have already done a 33%, a 20% and an 80% this week...

Should I do a few regular 10% or something?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

water changes won't interefere with the cycle, in fact there is some evidence to show that they help at this point in a cycle. I'll dig out a post with some more info for you in a minute.

basically the bacteria live on the filter media, they aren't free swimming in the water, so taking water out and putting new in doesn't harm the bacteria at all.

so do as many changes as you need to keep it at a more reasonable level (like 10ppm ish)

the massive nitrate shows that it is definately being processed so it's clearly all happening, just give it a bit more time, keep up water changes and adding the lower dose of ammonia, when your nitrite is dropping down to 0 about 16/20hrs after adding ammonia (not an exact science, just somewhere around there) start to ease the ammonia back up to 5ppm a day.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

here's the link

http/www.fishforums.net/content/forum/22...cling-Are-Good/

 

[jnms]

Thanks once again Miss Wiggle!! That is fantastic information indeed.

Right, from today I will do a daily 10% water change and hopefully this will keep those (somewhat excessive?) Nitrite readings lower. And if needed I will increase to 20% till I hit that 10ppm target.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no probs, that sounds spot on

if you want some more sciency stuff on cycling hop over to the scientific section of this forum and look for a topic 'when is a cycle finished' ... there's some more interesting stuff on cycling in that forum as well but that one stands out as v informative.

just researchy stuff basically but i think the more you read when you're going through it the better you understand what's happening.