Getting Frustrated

[Kaybear11]

I have been doing a fishless cycle on my 75 gallon since 4/20. My ammonia was hitting 0 in 24 hours up to 1 ppm so I kept dosing it there hoping it would keep the amount of nitrites down some while the nbacs were trying to catch up. Ever since my nitrites have gone down a little (about 5 or 6 days ago) my ammonia isn't hitting 0 in 24 hours anymore. The past two days I have done large water changes (80-90%) to get the nitrites back down to a readable level since they spiked back up and hoping to fix whatever issues I'm having with my ammonia. Is this a normal problem or what could I do to fix this?

Temp-84 F
Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are 0 out of the tap
Ph is 7.6 out of the tap and 8 in the tank
2 penguin biowheel 200s running with the water level kind of low

 

[fishchick]

I don't remember which one it is for sure but it's either PH or ammonia. But one of the two has a tendency to spike when you first start up a tank..i look it up later..

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I would say that you might have lowered your dosing too low. It probably would have been better at 2 or 3 ppm instead of 1ppm. You probably had some die-off of the A-bacs when you lowered the dose. It will rebound. I would stop the water changes for a little while to let things settle down a bit. (If I was the one to suggest the water changes, I apologize, if it has mislead you. The idea behind the water change was just to flush out the high nitrites at the beginning of the nitrite spike, not to continually do it. If you were interested in doing lots of water changes, you might as well just do a fish-in cycle.) I would let things settle, and up the dosing to 2 or 3 ppm. Be patient. Some cycles can take 7 - 10 weeks.


You will get there.

 

[Kaybear11]

Oh okay, I was confused on the water changes and keeping the ammonia low for the nitrites. Yea, im definitely not interested in doing huge water changes all the time, i just thought thats what you meant.I will go ahead and up the dose to 2-3 and let it be. Thanks for clearing that up for me

 

[Kaybear11]

I feel much better knowing that I made a little mistake rather than this being some unknown issue or whatever. Thanks again Eagle!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Sorry I wasn't clear. The idea behind the add and wait method is simply that. "Add and wait". A single water change in the middle isn't a big deal, as I understand it, although it might cause a minor pause, but will pick up right where it was the day before. If you are doing daily water changes, then you might as well do a fish-in cycle.


Sorry for the confusion.

 

[L_Plates]

As eagle said it looks like you lowered the ammonia dose a little to much. When you lower the dosing next time aim for around the 3ppm mark mate.

LP

 

[Kaybear11]

No problem! I have only done a total of 3 water changes during the cycle and I won't do anymore until the very end before adding fish. I am actually very relieved to hear that I don't have to keep doing this to lower the nitrite so again thank you for that lol.

I dosed the ammonia up to 2-3 earlier today. Hopefully I didn't set myself back too far

 

[eaglesaquarium]

In the grand scheme of things its probably a good thing. It will probably strengthen the colony overall.