Mini-cycle?

[Winterlily]

Okay ... I had gotten my male betta through the whole cycle safely by keeping the water changed a lot (at nitrite spike I was changing big amounts of water every 2 hours if you remember!). The ammonia finally dropped to 0, then a week or two later the nitrite dropped to 0. The nitrite stayed at 0 after that, but the ammonia went back up to about .25 every time I tested (2x a day) - I think because of a really crappy filtration system. (He was in an Eclipse 3 gallon.) Yesterday, I moved him into his new, and permanent, home of a 5.5 gallon with AquaClear 20 filter running and live plants.

Okay. I figured I'd avoid cycling entirely by moving the old filter media over into the new filter. I took the biowheel that was in the Eclipse, and put it in a net bag and hung it in the tank (no way to fit that in the filter). The actual filter in the old tank was a cartridge - couldn't fit that in the new filter either, so I opened it up and took the floss stuff that covered it and put that in the new filter. The rest of it was the bottom and sides and was basically a plastic shallow "box." In hindsight, I ought to have put that in the bag with the biowheel, but I'm a dope and didn't. I tossed it. Duhhhh. Anyhow. I stupidly thought the floss top of the cartridge would have enough bacteria in it to handle the new tank.

Guess not. I just moved him yesterday afternoon. Test this morning and now I have about .50 ammonia and .25 nitrite!! Arrrrgggh! Am I going to have to fully cycle again or is this just a kind of blip (mini-cycle??) until the bacteria catch up again? What should I expect here and how often would you suggest I test?

Thanks!

 

[glolite]

Hopefully a partial cycle as your ammonia and nitrite readings have risen so quickly. All you can do is water change till readings are nil and keep testing daily. The water conditioner by Seachem called Prime is good because it neutralises nitrites. It's the only one I've found to do so.

 

[Cdarmychi]

Well, if you are really worried I can possibly ship you the media? Those flat rate boxes are great for that stuff. Since it seems our schedules are so out of whack. If that was the case, I'd send you more then I had planned, assuming that there would be some die-off. (Media doesnt start dieing off until 12 hours so it wouldnt be a great issue, since my tanks are a tad bit overstocked and yours hardly are stocked.)

(And it seems my boss is going to nag me to death until I take this weekend's vacation and throw it out the window T_T) Everytime I get firm and say I want my vacation darnit! He hands me a chart involving maggots or uncooperative drunk people. *sigh* I hate maggots. So it might be best to post it.

Sakura

 

[Winterlily]

Sakura, just e-mailed you.

Glolite, thanks! And I do use Prime, so that's good. I just rechecked levels (had done about a 15-20% change this morning) and ammonia looks somewhere in between 0 and .25 and ditto for nitrites (not at all purple, but more blue than aqua - so I'm assuming right in between).

Will test again tonight!