Fishless Cycle...starting With High Nitrates

[Dakota789]

Hi Everyone,

I started a fishless cycle in a 10 gallon about a week ago. So far I've just been letting the tank run on it's own (without adding ammonia or anything) because I really don't know what to do...

I understand the nitrogen cycle and that ina fishless cycle you are supposed to put in ammonia at high levels and then your nitrites will go up thus creating nitrates and when ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0 and nitrates are 5-10 I'm in good shape right??

BUT..... these are my readings a few days after setting up the tank without adding anything but freshwater aquarium salt and a basic water conditioner:

ammonia: 1
nitrite: .50
Nitrate: 10
ph:7.6-7.8

I am using the API master liquid test kit. It was suggested to me to test my tap water as well and this is what I got:

ammonia: .25
nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
ph:7.6

I don't know why my nitrates are so high but I'm not sure where to go from this point... I'm not sure if the complete nitrogen cycle rules completely apply to my situation considering my nitrates are already so high...

Does anyone know what I should do? Should I just keep letting the tank run on it's own and see if the ammonia and nitrites go down?? SO confusing!!

THANKS!!!

 

[RedeyesUK]

I wouldn't worry about your nitrates, it's fairly normal to have readings in your tap water. I have anywhere between 10 and 30 out of mine!

What's more of a concern is your ammonia readings, ammonia out of your tap is not great, although manageable. But I'm interested to know where your 1ppm in the tank is coming from?

Could you list everything (substrate, decorations etc) you have in your tank?

Garry

 

[Dakota789]

I wouldn't worry about your nitrates, it's fairly normal to have readings in your tap water. I have anywhere between 10 and 30 out of mine!

What's more of a concern is your ammonia readings, ammonia out of your tap is not great, although manageable. But I'm interested to know where your 1ppm in the tank is coming from?

Could you list everything (substrate, decorations etc) you have in your tank?

Garry

Okay... It's a 10 gallon, Aquatech 5-15 filter with heater...
I have a ceremic log and 4 live plants, a regular gravel for the bottom (uncolored)... I'm guessing the ammonia came from one of the plants, maybe from the tank at the pet store... I read on the nitrogen cycle it's not a bad idea to get something from an 'established' tank to help kick start your own tank...

I'm so happy to hear about the nitrate thing!! I thought that was going to completely mess things up!

So should I start adding ammonia? I guess my fear was I was going to in turn create a lot MORE nitrate and that would be bad.

Thank you so much for helping me! I really appreciate it!

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with the investigation Redseye is trying to do... keep working on it red! (personally I can't see quite what it would be other than maybe the plants as Dakota is saying)

Dakota, lots of people have some ammonia and/or nitrates in their tap water, no worry! (always good to keep in mind we're talking parts per *million* here, lol.) It does, however, mean a slight change in habits, both during fishless cycling and later during normal tank maintenance with fish in there.

During fishless cycling it means you need to "come in low" with your initial adds of ammonia, until you learn the amount of "add" that will get you to 4-5ppm without going over that level (8ppm is what you don't want, just to give you an idea.)

As for the nitrates, it just means you change your "zero point".. ie. the scale just slides and for you, your NO3=10 is your "zero point" (instead of nitrates being a real zero) and thus, later, when you read nitrates of 20, you just know in your head that that means that 10 more ppm of nitrates have been added from baseline. Nitrates are indeed the endpoint of cycling and something we will get in the habit of removing each week usually after we have fish in the tank but they are not particularly important or reliable for "telling us things" during the cycling process. Sometimes they reassure us that things are working and sometimes they just confuse us, so better not to take them too seriously at this point in your learning.

Once you are past fishless cycling and maintaining a normal "with fish" tank, you will need a different habit from the average fish-keeper. When someone says "do a 50% water change", you will need to think "ok, I will do 2 25% water changes" to spread out the dilution of the ammonia exposure to my fish... that sort of thinking. Every time you put tap water in, there will be a little ammonia danger to your fish, so putting smaller, more frequent amounts in, allows both more dilution in the bigger body of tank water and more time for the (by then functional) biological filter to clear that ammonia out. Once your filter is mature, it will clear that 0.25ppm coming in very quickly. Of course, that's why we're fishless cycling, so you'll get a good filter like that.

If you've found the correct type of pure household ammonia, there's no need to wait, you can begin following the rdd1952 add and wait method right away, that's our working document for fishless cycling.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. welcome to TFF!

 

[Dakota789]

WOW!! I really can't thank you enough! I feel so much better about everything now, the way you explained it makes COMPLETE sense and was so easy to understand. FINALLY! haha

Okay, so I'm going to get on this now and I'll let you know how it turns out (I'm sure I'll ask a lot more questions in between! haha)

Thanks again! SO much!!!

 

[RedeyesUK]

Indeed, there's a lot of sense there, that's good advice.

Just what I would have written yesterday if I hadn't been running late getting back from lunch!

The only thing I'll add, is it's probably worth keeping an eye on your tap water stats for a while, they do tend to change, and in fact could have dropped between you adding your tank water and actually measuring from the tap. It may well be a temporary blip, and you could find ammonia readings dropping back down to zero out of your tap.

Good luck with the cycle, and feel free to keep asking questions!