In How Much Time Should Nitrites Disappear?

[Neptunienne]

Hello!

I'm right at the end of a fishless cycle, and I have a question to ask about the very end stage.

I've been adding 4ppm of ammonia daily to my tank for the last few days.

I've found that within 24 hours, the ammonia goes down fairly fast (I actually haven't measured it, probably a few hours), but that it take a while for the nitrite to go down, between 16 and 24 hours. It's been doing this for the last 4-5 days.

I read (in this forum's FAQ) that a tank should be able to handle processing of 4-5ppm ammonia and its resulting nitrite in 12 hours. Does this mean I still need to keep at it, to get the bacteria even more up to par? Or is this the best result I can get? What's your experience with the end of the process?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah you've completed stage 1, you now have stage 2 to go basically.

there's two types of bacteria you are cultivating, one to 'eat' ammonia, one to 'eat' nitrite. the ammonia one is now there but the nitrite one isn't quite.

you need to keep going as you have been so far until both ammonia and nitrite drop to 0 within 12 hrs.

as an indication of time, however long it took you from starting cycling to the ammonia dropping in 12 hrs, it usually takes roughly double that for the nitrite to get sorted.

so yu're doing well, but stick with it for now,