Fishless Cycle Readings?

[DanielG]

Hi i have been fishless cycling for a while now and i had been topping up ammonia so it stayed at about 5ppm, when it dropped to about 2.5ppm i would add more to get it to 5ppm.

I decided to leave the ammonia till it got to 0 and then add more but it is stuck at 2.5ppm???
However nitrite is still increasing everyday??? So ammonia must be being processed so where is the additional ammonia coming from??

I have plants in there while its cycling and wondered if dead leaves could be contributing to the ammonia load?? Othewise i dont know why ammonia is nt going down?

 

[rdd1952]

It's not uncommon for it to seem to hang at a particular point. Since the nitrite is increasing (do you know for sure that it's going up?) then ammonia is being processed. Plants will indeed use ammonia without it being processed and a heavily planted tank could probably be stocked without cycling. I dont tink dead leaves sould be an issue unless there are an awful lot of them.

Test your nitrate to see if it is rising. If it is, then you know both ammonia and nitrite are being processed. Once the nitrite finally drops, you should be fine.

 

[DanielG]

i thought i had to get to the stage where ammonia and nitrite both dropped to 0 in 12 hours after adding 5ppm ammonia??

 

[rdd1952]

You should get to that stage. Once the nitrite has completely dropped back to zero (what is the nitrite reading now?), you can do the water change and add the ammonia back up to 4 or 5 ppm. At that point, both should drop all the way back to zero in about 12 hours.

 

[DanielG]

ok, nitrite is currently at about 2ppm, but increasing everyday by at least 0.5ppm, ammonia stuck at 2.5ppm

although my test kit is difficult to use its a colour matching kit

are there any other forms of test kit that dont rely on colour?

 

[rdd1952]

It is difficult to disinguish the colors sometimes. Every kit I'm aware of relies on colors. Just keep in mind that it isn't ncessary to get an exact match. For cycling as long as you know your in the 4 to 5 ppm range, that's fine. Once the tank cycles, the 0 readings are very easy to match as they are totally different from any positive reading color.

Since the nitrite is only at 2ppm, you are really just getting started with the nitrite cycle. It will eventually go off the chart high. If you want, you can do a water change to lower the ammonia back closer to 0 to see if that helps it start cycling all the way back to zero. The main thing though is that ammonia is dropping (even if it isnt all the way down) and nitrite is rising. In another 2 to 4 days test for nitrite to see if any nitrite is being processed yet.

 

[DanielG]

got home and ammonia is 0, nitrite gone up a little again to around 2.7-3ppm

checked nitrate and its gone up loads, i used bactinetees so i guess the bacteria has been working away

i just added ammonia to get the tank back to around 3ppm

so im getting there

 

[rdd1952]

That sounds good. At least the ammonia finally went down. Since you used the bactinettes, I would think the nitrite would be down to zero before long, especially since the nitrates are rising.

 

[**sarahp**]

When did you add the bactinettes? How long has it been cycling? Just being nosey cos I'm currently cycling with bactinettes!!

 

[DanielG]

added bactinettes on saturday, ammonia 0 on tuesday

been cycling just over a week now and im just waiting for the nitrites to drop