How Long Before Ammonia Increase?

[melh1979]

Hi - okay so I'm another one who hadn't heard of fishless cycling and believed what the LFS had to say! I set up my 70 litre tank nearly 2 weeks ago at first with 5 lemon tetras then we added 3 more. I've been testing the water fairly regularly but haven't seen much of an increase in Ammonia yet. I was just curious how long it should take before I start seeing an increase in Ammonia.
Levels of Ammonia started at 0.1 (but there is no zero on the colour chart), levels have risen slightly but it's difficult to tell - they haven't been more than 0.4 anyhow. Nitrite seemed to rise slightly from 0.1 to 0.25 over a few days but the last couple of days this has dropped to less than 0.1. We've only tested Nitrate the last few times and this has gone from 60 to 75 (tap water is 50) - although again it is a little hard to tell. pH is between 8 and 8.5. We've been using an Interpet testing kit which uses tablets.
Does all this seem okay?

 

[Aprilia997]

Your tank should not be quite through cycling yet but if you nitrites stay at zero it may be done. The high pH of your water would be a good reason to keep checking the ammonia level for at least a few more days. The reason being is that ammonia is more poisonous as the pH increases.

 

[melh1979]

Thanks - I actually got it wrong as we've had the tank set up for three weeks now! I just got confused as the ammonia hasn't really increased as much as I would expect it to.

 

[Creature Seeker]

I've been cycling with fish for 7 weeks now and havn't spotted any ammonia since I started. The only thing I can think of is that the ammonia peaked at the start when I wasn't testing so often.

It sounds like yours is cycling and going well so I wouldn't add any more fish for a while. Wait till ammonia and nitrite are zero and then add fish very slowly over the following months.

...

 

[melh1979]

Thanks - that's good to know! I must admit to not testing every day as it didn't seem to be changing much and testing was neglected a little over Christmas so maybe there was a peak then who knows! How high does the nitrite tupically go before going down again as ours went up to 0.25 then has gone down to almost 0? There isn't a 0 on the ammonia chart with our testing kit - the lowest is 0.1 whereas the nitrite one shows it should be clear for 0.
We aren't planning on adding any fish for a few weeks then we may add a few cories of some sort.