Has My Cycle Stalled?

[jaydee1106]

Hi all. So I'm new to freshwater tanks and am concerned that my tank cycle may be at a stall. So I'm on the 25th day of my cycle and Here's what my water parameters looked like as of last week:

Ammonia:0.50 ppm
Nitrites:0.25 ppm
Nitrates:5 ppm
Ph:5 ppm

Last week was the first time in 4 weeks that there was any changes at all. First time Ammonia went down and first time any signs of Nitrites and Nitrates. The problem is that it's been this way for over a week now as I've been testing daily with no changes. So to disclose I added 3 Amazon swords to my tank 3 days ago but this did nothing to my parameters. The only mistake I made was taking some advice on placing root tabs in my gravel which made my water super cloudy. So due to the cloudy water and stalled cycle, I read that a 50% might help with a stall. Yesterday I performed a 50% wc and here are my water parameters as of today:

Ammonia: 0.50 ppm
Nitrites: 1 ppm
Nitrates : 10 ppm
Ph: 7.6 ppm

So Nitrites and Nitrates went up overnight. My tap water has 0.50 ppm so I neutralize the Ammonia with Seachem Prime.

Does this look like the cycle is moving in the right direction? Any advice would be great because I want to get a feel if there's anything else I can do at this point to move the cycle along. Thanks.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It looks pretty normal. Dose up to at least 2ppm, up to 5ppm ammonia, and test again in 24 hours. You should see the ammonia drop and hopefully some nitrite build up. The nitrate doesn't have to mean anything regarding the cycle and just be a result of the root tabs. I'd pull the root tabs if at all possible. No reason for needing that at this time. Its ok to cycle with plants, but its generally not recommended, because you need light for the plant and that means algae. No matter, the cycle will carry on. I think you're fine. Some cycles are just slower than others.

 

[jaydee1106]

Okay so I'm now on day 8 where my nitrites and nitrates are of the charts. I've done 4 major water changes in the past few days but the numbers have not changed. Should I be concerned or do I just wait it out at this point? Should I dose ammonia maybe every 3 days to lower the ammonia that is converting to nitrites? My nitrites are above the 5ppm color on the chart and my nitrates are unreadable. My ph is really high as well but I read this could be due to extremely high presence of nitrates in the water. The only thing I'm dosing is Flourish excel daily and my anubias and amazons are doing great other than green algae growing on the leaves.

 

[KCB]

Are you dosing everyday? You're only supposed to add ammonia when it has dropped to zero .

At that point in my cycle I just waited it out until the nitrites dropped over night, but you could keep doing large water changes until you can see a proper reading. I was told to do this so I could see a change in the nitrites. I also decided to half dose the ammonia from that point on as it was being converted so quickly but the nitrite was being converted very slowly so I had an off-the-charts reading all the time.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

When you say "major" water changes, what exactly are we talking about? During a fishless cycle, I recommend going all the way to the substrate if you are going to bother with a water change to eliminate ALL the residual nitrite/nitrate that's built up. The bacteria you are trying to cultivate actually prefer VERY LOW concentrations of nitrite (<0.14ppm) so, you might as well bring them down to that level, even if it will stay there for a very short time. Doing 50% water changes aren't really worth doing, and doing 2 50% water changes is the same as doing 1 75% water change in terms of lowering nitrite, but costs you 100% of the water.


If you have 10ppm nitrite - doing a 50% water change reduces that to 5ppm, another 50% reduces it in half again to 2.5ppm, which will very quickly be unreadable again on the kit.

But, doing a 100% water change will bring the nitrite down to trace levels (or at least well below 1ppm, maybe 0.25 ppm). Then you can dose up the ammonia to 2ppm again, and see what happens in 24 hours. Hopefully you will see the ammonia reach 0, and the nitrite will still be in a readable range. More than likely though, it will jump off the chart.



You can also dilute your tank water in the test tube to try to determine the amount. Instead of filling to the line on the tube (5ml) use medical syringe and fill it with only 1 ml, use the syringe to then add 4ml of tap water (which should have 0 ppm nitrite). Then test as usual. Take your reading, and multiple your result by 5, and that will give you an estimate for high your nitrites really are. If they are REALLY high, you get a purple immediately at the bottom of the tube before shaking, and it turns a grayish color - assuming you are using the API kit.