Mid Cycle Reassurance Needed!

[Coolcatfish]

Hello everyone,
 
I'd like to quickly thank all the experts here who so accurately answer people's questions here. It makes for very interesting reading for newbies to the hobby (like me!).
 
Anyway I'm hoping you'll be equally kind and provide me with some tips or reassurance that things are progressing correctly.
 
My specifics:
140l tank (brand new)
Fluval 306 external filter with lots of sponges, bio rings, charcoal, filter wool and a single pouch of Purigen. 
Substrate: Sand bought brand new from Pets@Home
 
Ok so my fish less cycling story starts as follows: 
 
I rinsed the inside of the empty tank with warm water and thoroughly rinsed all the substrate until the water was as clean as it was going to get. 
 
I added this all in and then filled the tank with water. At this point I added Interpet Tap Safe to dechlorinate the water. I set the filter and bumped the heater up to 28 and left the whole thing running for a couple of days.
 
Next I added Household Ammonia (enough for 4ppm). The next day I tested for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. 
 
4ppm Ammonia, 0 Nitrate, 40ppm Nitrate (I've since discovered it's this high out of the tap).
 
Fast forward a week of monitoring the ammonia and dosing up when appropriate. I also added love plants which so far seemed to be happy enough and I even had little pond snails scooting around (I pull these out and pop them in the pond in the garden as I see them). Now ammonia is dropping fairly fast (4ppm to almost flat in 24 hours) and nitrites have gone off the charts with a deep purple colour (API test kit).
 
Now I read somewhere that if your nitrites go so high that you can't tell what they are, it's a good idea to do a water change to bring them back down to a measurable amount. So I did a 50% water change and was shocked to find that the nitrite levels were totally unchanged. I left it a week (occasionally adding ammonia to keep some in the tank) to settle and found absolutely no changes to the test results. So yesterday I did a 92% water change draining it right down to the substrate line. I turned over the substrate and flattened it all down before adding water back in (pre conditioned with dechlorintator).
 
I checked the water the next morning and the results are the same for Nitrites!! To be honest it seems to have dropped some because before it went purple instantly and now it starts light blue and slowly goes to the same purple.
 
My plan now is leave it for a couple of weeks and keep the ammonia at around 2ppm and see what happens. Just to confirm I'm about 2 1/2 weeks in so is this what I should be seeing at this point and is it normal that doing such a big water change wouldn't impact the nitrites at all?
 
Thanks to those who are still reading!! Your input is greatly appreciated!
 
Rob
 
P.s. I've been advised to add bicarbonate of soda (ph is currently 7.4) and also put my heater up to 30 Celsius. All whilst keeping ammonia at 2ppm. How do you guys feel about this? Thanks.

 

[cjheck]

I'm new but have never read to do a water change when the nitrites are really high. Is this really a thing?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You have been dosing too much ammonia which produces too much nitrite which can stall or undo a cycle. I suggest your read the cycling article here to understand what is going on a bit better.
 
The total amount of ammonia the averagefishless cycle requires is roughly 13 ppm in 5 different additions over about 35 days. And that 13 ppm is based on the ml added more than the test results which can be inaccurate.
 
But here is the basic math 1 ppm of ammonia on an API kit becomes 2.55 ppm of nitrite on their kit. If it read that high at over 15 ppm you are in danger of stalling or undoing a cycle.
4 ppm of ammonia  turns into 10.2 ppm. Dose 4 ppm twice before the tank has started to process nitrite and you have 20.4 ppm. Keep tyring to feed the ammonia bacs, which do not need that, and you raise the nitrites more. You can either do as many water changes as it takes to get your nitrite under 5 ppm for certain or you can do diluted testing.
 

 
For this you need a way to create an accurate mix of your tank water and some amount of pure water, i.e. distilled or reverse osmosis/deionized (ro/di) water. You should be able to find a gallon of distilled water in the supermarket. Some fish stores sell ro/di water. You will need a clean measuring cup as well. You will use this to mix different solutions of tank and pure water to be able to test for nitrite. You do not want to use your tap water for dilution purposes as it will often contain things that can cause test result be inaccurate.
 
The reason for using a measuring cup is that it is important to get the proportions of the mix as close to dead on as possible. The advantage of measuring using a cup from which you will only use a few ml is that the potential for mixing errors is way less of an issue in 8 ounces than in 5 or 10 ml of water. What you will do is start by making a 50/50 mix (4 ounces each) of tank and pure water. Then you pour 5 ml of this into the little test tube and do the nitrite test. You will then multiply the result of the test by 2 to get the actual ppm in your tank.
 
However if this 50/50 diluted test result is still at the maximum level and the test kit reads to a maximum level of 8 ppm or less, you will have to do another further dilution. The easiest way is to start with ¼ cup of tank water and ¾ cup of pure water. Test this mix and multiply the result by 4 this time. Alternatively you can use ½ cup of the initial 50/50 mix and then add ½ cup of pure water to this. The result will be ¼ tank and ¾ pure water. If this test is also at the maximum number, don't worry about a further test, just do a huge water change (at least 50%). After doing the water change, test for nitrite using the 50/50 test method again.

 
The goal of all this is the get the nitrite securely below 15 ppm (10 ppm would be fine). Then wait. DO NOT ADD MORE AMMONIA
 
The follow the last part of the fishless cycling directions on this site. You are at the part of the directions that reads "After the maintenance feeding," You are past the maintenance feeding, Be sure to recalculate the ammonia dose correctly for 3 ppm, DO NOT ADD 4PPM.
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/421488-cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first

 

[Gruntle]

I'd suggest reading the "Read this first" article (TTA has linked above) a few times through until you get a good grip on what's required.  It sounds to me like you've been adding too much ammonia, which results in too much nitrite, which can be a problem.
 
If you could document what you've added and when, we'll be better placed to help.
 
I wouldn't add bicarb, your pH is fine, and I don't think bumping up the temperature would do much either.