How Long For Nitrites To Drop ?

[Ginga@139]

Hi been cylcing my 65L fishless for about 14 days now at the moment adding and clearing to O about 3.5ml ammonia every 24hrs
i thought i was getting funny nitrite reslults until i found out dont bother to shake tube if the drops sink straight to the bottom and turn purple
how long should these high nitrites last ???

Ginga

 

[waterdrop]

We see many fishless cycles take between 65 and 70 days here on the forum. A few take 30 or less and a few have taken more than 100. You are at 14 days and your ammonia is dropping to zero within 24 hours, so you seem to be doing better than average. Getting the instant purple sinking drops on the API nitrite test means you are into your "nitrite spike phase" of the fishless cycle and like everything else about a fishless cycle, the time you will be in there is unpredictable. On average we usually see this second part of the cycle, where the nitrite oxidizing bacteria are slowing building up, take longer than the early part where the ammonia oxidizers are first growing. One of the "slowest" parts is often near the very end where it can seem to take forever for the nitrite eaters to clear the last little bit before the 12 hour mark.

~~waterdrop~~