How Long For Nitrites To Drop?

[sjolliff]

currently stays purple for a couple of mins or so, then turns purple-pinkish (fuschia like colour)

mine has been doing that over the last few days then went to dark again now to this??
wonder why that is dont dee how it goes dark then lighter?
im still adding 2ppm of ammonia
hopefully your will be soon

 

[yasinullah]

currently stays purple for a couple of mins or so, then turns purple-pinkish (fuschia like colour)

mine has been doing that over the last few days then went to dark again now to this??
wonder why that is dont dee how it goes dark then lighter?

I guess its just the way the test reagent works, the higher concentrations cause the pinkish colour to form. I have never seen a test reach 4.0ppm, thats a weird colour that one!

 

[sjolliff]

Are you using thew API liquid tests or other?

 

[yasinullah]

API also, from the master test kit.

 

[sjolliff]

mine went dark purplr 5ppm+ after a few day of dosing 4-5ppm of ammonia

 

[swordtailz]

It took my 30 gallon fish tank exactly 4 weeks for the nitrite to go to 0.

 

[sjolliff]

I have did put mature media in when i restarted agian 2 weeks ago and i saw a change 24hrs later

 

[swordtailz]

If you have access to mature filter media, that can speed things up alot.

 

[sjolliff]

Rabbut gave me some before but dint do much as i had probs with stress coat (dodgy bottle i think)
i got this media from a lad at work from his pond

Would putting another bit of mature media in now help more?

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Mature media will help but I found I still needed to cycle. Maybe it was the size of my filter compared to the amount of mature media??


Anyway the Nitrites will come down. I made a bit of a mistake and added approx 6ppm of ammonia each day (I misunderstood the fishless cycle instructions and added approx 3ppm every 12 hours!) When I then found out I continued to add ammonia but just once a day and I did 4ppm every 24 hours. My Nitrites only took about a week to come down even with that extra ammonia in there

Infact thinking about it you might be slowing the process down by only adding 2ppm.

I know concentrations of Ammonia above 8ppm can cause the wrong type of bacteria to grow, but as far as I am aware high concentrations of Nitrite don't do anything bad. Maybe a higher level causes more bacteria to develop which then in turn processes it quicker - Just a theory and I expect so experts to argue it! But it was just a thought in my head

 

[sjolliff]

Anyway the Nitrites will come down. I made a bit of a mistake and added approx 6ppm of ammonia each day (I misunderstood the fishless cycle instructions and added approx 3ppm every 12 hours!) When I then found out I continued to add ammonia but just once a day and I did 4ppm every 24 hours. My Nitrites only took about a week to come down even with that extra ammonia in there

Infact thinking about it you might be slowing the process down by only adding 2ppm.

I know concentrations of Ammonia above 8ppm can cause the wrong type of bacteria to grow, but as far as I am aware high concentrations of Nitrite don't do anything bad. Maybe a higher level causes more bacteria to develop which then in turn processes it quicker - Just a theory and I expect so experts to argue it! But it was just a thought in my head

Good point

Alot happened while adding 4-5ppm of ammonia then slowed down hen i went to 2ppm, but they say nitrites take twice as long as ammonia to drop?

1ppm of ammonia = something like 1.75ppm of nitrites,
i wonder if i change now to say 3-4ppm of ammonia it will cause i nitrite spike?

 

[Tropical_Fish]

don't know - in my head I was wondering if it was good that I started off to high, then backed it down?

Just looked at my log to get exact timescales:

I put my first ammonia in on the 13th July, The Fish went in on the 8th August. It was processing both by the 4th August. The ammonia was being processed by the 20th July.

So from starting it took 7 days to get the Ammonia down to zero, it then took 15 days to get to the point where both were processing down to zero. So as others have said twice as long for the nitrite!

 

[sjolliff]

So from starting it took 7 days to get the Ammonia down to zero, it then took 15 days to get to the point where both were processing down to zero. So as others have said twice as long for the nitrite!

And that was with the high dosage still?

surly if im putting 2ppm of ammonia in that means less nitrites then less nitrates so longer to drop?!

 

[Tropical_Fish]

surly if im putting 2ppm of ammonia in that means less nitrites then less nitrates so longer to drop?!

Not sure what you're saying there, but yes my figures were with the higher ammonia. From the moment my ammonia started processing in 12 hours I was adding 4ppm of ammonia both morning and night so probably 8ppm in total per day to start with (but never more than 4ppm in the tank at once). I then went away for 4 days and got my sister to just add a bit morning and night - so that was more like 6ppm per day. Waterdrop then picked up on this when I commented about morning and night. I then dropped back on the ammonia to just 4ppm once a day, a couple of days later the nitrites came right down.


It does sound as if yours are coming down if they're back on the scale now, mine finished a few days after it came back on to the scale.

 

[yasinullah]

I was thinking about what effect high ammonia doses (rather than 2 - 3ppm) might have also. I think I'll also bump up ammonia doses a little bit, you might be on to something there, as I seem to keep reducing the ammonia I'm adding each time, in hope of a 0 reading lol. My initial ~3ppm dosing did result in a 0 after 24hours.

Also, I read in a couple other logs where the user had been double dosing ammonia, and theirs did also reach 0ppm.