Insanely High Nitrite

[Mervin]

Hi,
 
I'm into about week 6 of cycling my tank, the past few weeks the ammonia has been dropping to 0 in less than 24 hours but the nitrite remained off the chart (the tube instantly went a very dark purple). 2 days ago I decided to do a partial water change (30%) to try and get the nitrite down into readable levels. My thinking is that because i'm adding ammonia on a daily level, the rate of nitrite increase is a lot higher than the rate that it is being reduced.
 
After waiting for some time I took another reading and it was still off the chart. I did another 50% to try and get the level down. I waited again and retested. It was still off the chart. I've just done a 80% water change and although the colour is a different shade of purple, more of a deep red/purple rather than a deep blue, according to the chart it's still very high, perhaps even off the chart. (I'm finding it hard to read the colours as some of them are virtually identical).
 
What should I do? I'm concerned that the bacteria that converts nitrite is being stalled because of the high readings. My nitrate readings have remained around 8 through out these past 2 weeks.
 
Thanks

 

[Livewire88]

Just give it some more time, 6 weeks is around average so yours may be taking a little longer, also remember the Nitrite processing bacteria takes around twice as long to form as the Ammonia processing bacteria.
How much Ammonia are you dosing?
 
Also your tap water is likley to have some NitrAte in so that would explain why you are reading NitrAte.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Stop dosing so much ammonia. You can't read your actual level of nitrite. At 5 ppm nitrite-n (nitrite-nitrogen), its starting to work against you. That -n number would read about 16 on an API test kit if it went anywhere near that high.
 
Do not dose any more ammonia until you get your nitrite at a readable level. Once you can get to around 1 ppm, then you can dose 1/4 your initial ammonia dosing amount ever few days until nitrite reads 0. Once you have 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite, dose ammonia to 2 ppm and test 24 hours later. If you get 0/0, you are cycled. If you do not get 0/0, wait til you do and repeat the 2 ppm/24 wait and test again.

 

[Mervin]

I'm dosing about 1ml of ammonia, enough to bring it back up to about 4ppm. So should I keep changing the water until the nitrite reads about 1ppm? And then from that point just dose a quarter of the ammonia whenever it goes back down to 0?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

1. What ever initial dose it took you to get to 4 ppm starting from 0, the maint. dose is 1/4 of that.
 
2. Do not add any ammonia at all until you get the nitrites under control- i.e. 1 ppm on the API kit or less. (You can do water changes to help if you want.) When you get them under control, you can begin doing the 1/4 dose every 2-3 days.
 
3. When nitrites finally read 0 (and ammonia should be doing so as well), dose 1/2 the initial amount you started with. (Twice the 1/4 maint. dose amount). This should = 2 ppm. If by some chance you decide to test after dosing, I do not really care what it reads since the relative dose amounts are the key and they are all based on what it took to get 4 ppm into your water at the start. (If you mistrust your initial dosing amount, its is better to err on the under rather than the over side of things, so reduce the dose amount a bit.)
 
4. Wait 24 hours. Test ammonia and nitrite. If they are both 0, you are cycled. If they are not, go back to # 3. above and repeat.
 
5. The next time you do a fishless cycle, try starting with ammonia at 2-3 ppm (1 ppm will even work). Do not dose ammonia every day either.

 

[the_lock_man]

Stop dosing so much ammonia. You can't read your actual level of nitrite. At 5 ppm nitrite-n (nitrite-nitrogen), its starting to work against you. That -n number would read about 16 on an API test kit if it went anywhere near that high.
 
Do not dose any more ammonia until you get your nitrite at a readable level. Once you can get to around 1 ppm, then you can dose 1/4 your initial ammonia dosing amount ever few days until nitrite reads 0. Once you have 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite, dose ammonia to 2 ppm and test 24 hours later. If you get 0/0, you are cycled. If you do not get 0/0, wait til you do and repeat the 2 ppm/24 wait and test again.

 
Not wishing to dis your immense knowledge, Mr Amin, but sometimes you give way too much detail, and it just serves to confuse newcomers who are already struggling. Inexperienced fishkeepers do not need to worry about nitrite-n, frankly I don't need to know about nitrite-n and any other sort of nitrite. They only need to know about what's good and what's not on their testkit.
 
You give some incredibly good advice, mate, it's just you hide it behind a barrage of technical jargon that isn't relevant to most beginners' needs.
 

No offence meant.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Inexperienced fishkeepers do not need to worry about nitrite-n, frankly I don't need to know about nitrite-n and any other sort of nitrite. They only need to know about what's good and what's not on their test kit.

 
And this is exactly why so many folks on this site (and other as well) have so many problems with cycling. They are told to test without their having any clue what they are measuring or how they are measuring it.
 
So lock_man let me ask you to explain in plain simple terms for all the new fish keepers out there. How much nitrite is a bad thing during a fishless cycle, why is it bad. Then how does one know if they have reached those levels using an API test kit or any other kit that measures in the same fashion?

 

[the_lock_man]

How much nitrite is bad? The level that does not come down.
Why is it bad? Because the level isn't coming down.
How do you know? Because the level isn't coming down.
 
IMHO, that's as much detail as most newbies need to know. They just want a pretty tank, without fish that die. Those that are sensible enough have researched on here, found out about a fishless cycle, and are prepared to do that because it's best. When they hit problems (and let's be honest, not everyone does hit problems, mine went as per the textbook), they want to know what to do, not why. All they want is to see their nitrite levels drop.
 
As I said above, your detailed scientific knowledge is great, and I have the greatest respect for that. All I'm saying is that, IMHO, you need to have a bit more empathy for the newcomers' wants and needs. Tell them what they want to know, not what you want to tell them.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Not a very good answer. At some point nitrite can get high enough to trash one's cycles. Since that occurs at a level well above the maximum level on the test kit, how do you know if you have reached that level? On an API test kit that level is about 16 ppm. But the kit only goes to 5 ppm. So how do you know once you hit 5 ppm how much higher than that the reading is? How do you know if its 6 or 16 or 60?
 
But not knowing this, you are prepared to give folks advice about what to do. How do you know were the top is? How do you know if the top was at 16 and it has dropped to 7 or if it isn't coming down at all? The test kit doesn't help. So how long do you want folks to wait for the test kit to show nitrite back in the range it is able to measure or how long before it wont come down do you advise folks to take action?
 
I will leave you with three quotes:
 
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - proverb.
 
"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." - Albert Einstein.
 
"What makes the common man uncommon is common sense." TwoTankAmin
 
 
 
 
 

 

[the_lock_man]

You really are missing the point aren't you?
 
This is what you wrote.
 

Stop dosing so much ammonia. You can't read your actual level of nitrite. At 5 ppm nitrite-n (nitrite-nitrogen), its starting to work against you. That -n number would read about 16 on an API test kit if it went anywhere near that high.
 
Do not dose any more ammonia until you get your nitrite at a readable level. Once you can get to around 1 ppm, then you can dose 1/4 your initial ammonia dosing amount ever few days until nitrite reads 0. Once you have 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite, dose ammonia to 2 ppm and test 24 hours later. If you get 0/0, you are cycled. If you do not get 0/0, wait til you do and repeat the 2 ppm/24 wait and test again.

 
Which, don't get me wrong, is sound advice.
 
However, this is what people read.
 
 

Stop dosing so much ammonia. You can't read your actual level of nitrite. Blah blah blah nitrite blah blah what is he banging on about blah blah.
 
Do not dose any blah blah blah what was that other sentence about, don't worry here's someone else that I can understand.

 
 
If you had written
 
 

Stop dosing so much ammonia. You can't read your actual level of nitrite. Do not dose any more ammonia until you get your nitrite at a readable level. Once you can get to around 1 ppm, then you can dose 1/4 your initial ammonia dosing amount ever few days until nitrite reads 0. Once you have 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite, dose ammonia to 2 ppm and test 24 hours later. If you get 0/0, you are cycled. If you do not get 0/0, wait til you do and repeat the 2 ppm/24 wait and test again.

 
that would have been perfectly understandable even by the thickest of thickies.
 
Do you get me now?
 
Oh and one other quote. "If you give a man a fish, it will help him complete his cycle, and he won't need any fish tomorrow." - me.