Fishless Cycling - Nitrite Spike

[idb1981]

Hi,

Sorry all, another question about my fishless cycle.

I've been fishless cycling for 38 days now. My ammonia took 22 days to drop to zero and is now returning to zero within 24 hours. My Nitrites & Nitrates are both off the scale, I'm using a Hagen mini master test kit and my Nitrite reading goes beyond purple and into a very pale red! I've also had another bigh PH drop recently (I've re-buffered the water with bi-carb). I'm continuing to dose ammonia daily.

I'm wondering if a 100% water change would be sensible and keep dosing my ammonia daily. My thinking is, this will allow the bacteria to get to grips with the Nitrite as it must be overwhelmed at the minute.

Any guidence much appreciated.

 

[markandhisfish]

( no cycling expert only done it once but heres what i think)

do a big waterchange , keep dosing the ammonia to 5ppm , the nitrite processing bacteria is slower to de velop and should soon catch up. when i did my cycle i had to wait about 3 weeks after the ammonia processing was up to speed for the nitrites to catch up.

im sure somebody more in the know will be able to elaborate better for you soon enough

 

[OldMan47]

I think your proposed action has merit IDBarnett. By removing the excess nitrites and nitrates, you will recover your pH with no added chemicals.

 

[idb1981]

Completed a 90% waterchange early this morning and took readings after:

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 3.3ppm+

I have redosed ammonia but was stunned that after a 90% water change that my Nitrite was still so high! Should I do another 50% water change to lower the Nitrite further or leave it?

I'll take some further reading this evening.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, this often happens. The nitrite hangs with the substrate and filter and manages to stay in pretty high concentration despite the big water change. The Nutrafin kit also exaggerates the situation a bit I feel. Yes, you could do a second water change after the first, when you do these things, and you would see a much better drop in nitrite level afterwards but I wouldn't bother to go back and do it now. I would just think of these type water changes to be potentially helpful to your fishless cycle if you happen to have time on a weekend and want to do them, they are not a necessity as its not a proven thing that they shorten the fishless cycling time (its just a theory that it couldn't hurt sort of thing among some of us currently.) Always remember to recharge your ammonia (and baking soda if you're one of those doing that for particularly low KH/pH.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

The thing to remember about nitrites is just how much you have produced over time. Each 1 ppm of ammonia that you have added the whole time you have been trying to cycle the tank has become 2.7 ppm of nitrites. If you add it up, that is an awful lot of nitrites. Even if you only have 10% of it left, that adds up to just tons of the stuff. A little will have moved forward to become nitrates but until the N-bac bacterial colony gets quite large, the nitrites are going to be huge. Let me go back to an earlier, perhaps too British in nature, statement you made "My thinking is, this will allow the bacteria to get to grips with the Nitrite as it must be overwhelmed at the minute." Some people will not pick up on the subtle understatement involved.

 

[idb1981]

Thanks for the comments, I'm continuing my daily dosing of Ammonia. Nitrite reading still the same as after the water change. I'll keep on monitoring and dosing.

Here's my log/chart as of today- Fishless Cycle Log