Need Some Cycling Advice Please.

[Qwickshot]

Hi all,
 
I'm on Day 11 cycling my Rio 180 and I'm not sure what to do next.
 
The tank was setup for around 10 days before I started cycling it with the starting water readings of (API test kit):
 
Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20-40, PH 7.5
 
Added 3ppm ammonia
 
By day 4 I was at:
 
Ammonia 2, Nitrite 0.25, Nitrate 40, PH 8.4
 
Day 7
 
Ammonia 0.5, Nitrite 5+, Nitrate 40-80, PH 8
 
Added 3ppm ammonia
 
Day 11
 
Ammonia 0, Nitrite 5+, Nitrate 40-80, PH 8
 
 
Do I wait or add the feeder dose of ammonia? I'm not seeing nitrate drop at all and the ammonia seems to be disappearing much quicker than expected. I am in a hard water area.
 
The tank was brand new, no pre-cycled media used. It does have some live plants.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You appear to be cycling pretty well and on the faster end of the spectrum. You must have a decent amount of bacteria from the tap to get things going.
 
Test on day 13 and if ammonia has stayed at 0, you can do the 1 ppm snack. Then you are waiting for nitrites to come back under top of the chart.
 
1 ppm of ammonia can make a max of 2.55 ppm of nitrite. This assumes testing is accurate. You should be seeing things approaching the next 3 ppm addition in about a week to 10 days from the snack is my best guess. a fast cycle is under 35 days. It is rare to be under 30.
 
Ntirate is pretty much irrelevant and saying 40-80 means a pretty wide difference. Nitrate tests are not that great so are harder to read and even harder to trust.

 

[Qwickshot]

Thanks for the reply.
 
I'll how it looks tomorrow.
 
I agree about the nitrate test, I say its 40-80 as the tube goes bright red but I cant tell which it is. My base nitrate in my water is 33 according to the water supplier. I don't have any distilled water to do a diluted test to bring it into the orange range so its a best guestimate.

 

[Qwickshot]

Well tested today and Ammonia was 0 again, so added the 1ppm snack. Roll on the next week.

 

[Gruntle]

Sounds like you're proceeding very nicely. Well done.

 

[Qwickshot]

These are the results following the 1ppm snack dose on day 13:
 
Day 15: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 5+, PH 8.2
Day 17: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 5+, PH 8.2
 
Day 18: I did some diluted testing on the nitrite to see exactly where it is at. It put nitrite at around 20, should I be concerned? I've see that nitrite above 16 can stall the cycle.
 
My method for testing was 10ml tank water and 90ml de-ionised water and that read around 2ppm on the scale so ~20ppm after multiplying up.
I also did 10ml and 190ml which read 0.5 on the scale so again multiplies up to ~20ppm.
 
I'm also getting some hair type algae in the tank, mainly growing on plants that have red bottomed leaves. There is some other brownish algae starting to grow on the rear glass. The tank does get some direct sunlight in the morning if I forget to draw the blind but that is not regularly. Lights are on for 2 3 hour stints per day with a 3 hour break in the middle.
 
Do you guys think I should wait it out some more, or change some of the water to bring the nitrite down?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Follow the directions in this article for doing diluted testing unless you have quality measuring equipment. http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/433778-rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-il/

 

[Qwickshot]

The reading is still at the top of the scale for the 1/4 cup / 3/4 cup test suggesting 20+

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You need to do about a 50% water change in that case. That should lower nitrite by 50%. However I am a bit confused but all the information.
 
Lets start with the fact that 1 ppm of ammonia can only turn into a maximum of 2.55 ppm of nitrite. That requires 100% of the ammonia be converted and for 0% of that nitrite to be turned to nitrate.
 
So you have basically added a reported total of 7 ppm of ammonia which would max out at under 18 ppm of nitrite. But as all this is going on some amount of the ammonia may evaporate before it gets processed. In addition, as nitrite builds, the nitrite bacs begin to reproduce. So, even as the nitrite is rising, some of it is being converted to nitrate, so based on what you report, it should not be possible for there to be in excess of 20 ppm of nitrite in the tank.
 
Next, that same 7 ppm of ammonia added, if 100% is turned to nitrate, should result in just over 24 ppm of nitrate. Of course your total nitrate readings should be 20-40 ppm greater due to your tap reading.
 
Finally, once the 2nd full addition of ammonia is made, one should be testing every 2 days, so some readings are missing.
 
My best guess here is you actually overdosed ammonia. I wonder if you reduced the tank volume for glass/decor/substrate as suggested in the article in calculating the amount of ammonia to add. You should be using no more than 162 litres to calculate the dose volume. Can you please report the strength of the ammonia you are using and how many ml you calculated as the full dose amount. Ammonia drops faster than nitrite during cycling so it is possible to get the ammonia readings you reported if you have added a bit too much ammonia. However, this bit can be enough to boost nitrite levels from being under 16 ppm to being over.
 
There are a number of things than can cause test results to be off slightly which is why we normally suggest one use the ammonia calculator rather than trying to hit 3 ppm by adding and testing. The calculator is more likely to produce the desired concentration than the kit is to test it accurately.

 

[Qwickshot]

You should be using no more than 162 litres to calculate the dose volume. Can you please report the strength of the ammonia you are using and how many ml you calculated as the full dose amount. 
 
 

 
I think this is where I went wrong. I did reduce the total tank volume down to 170L and added 9.5% ammonia.
 
3ppm dose was 5.37ml, it was measured accurately with a syringe.
1ppm dose was 1.79ml again was added with a syringe.
 
I think what has also contributed, before I started cycling I had to add some plant friendly aquatic soil under the gravel as the plants were dieing back heavily. It look another 10 days or so after I started cycling for the plants to establish and I have been pulling out dead plant matter over the first week, I must have missed some which could have contributed.
 
I have changed the water which bought things into check and I'll wait out the nitrite.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Yes, that is possible, but plants should also consume some of the ammonia and then not create any nitrite from this. However, if one has more than a few plants in a tank being cycled, the amount of ammonia as well as the need to cycle at all decreases in proportion to the quantity and nutrient demands of the plants. Ultimately one can have enough of the right types of plants to make cycling in the traditional sense unnecessary.
 
Plants will consumes ammonia and nitrate and also come with the needed bacteria on them. Normally, cycling with plants should use less ammonia and the more plants, the less the need to cycle and the less ammonia one might need. I can see what article needs to be written next.
 
Cycling a tank means more than just bacteria when plants are involved. The goal of cycling is to deal with ammonia so one isn't allowing their tank to become toxic. Bacteria is one way and plants are another. The biggest difference is one can have a safe tank with only bacteria and no live plants. However, all planted tanks also have some amount of bacteria at work. Plants will never do 100% of the job.

 

[Qwickshot]

Thanks for the help, things are ticking along nicely now. The last full dose of ammonia was fully transformed into nitrate in 30 hours, just added what hopefully will be the last dose.

Added a second batch of plants also on Saturday, starting to look good in there.

Here's the setup as it stands now: