New Tank Being Cycled - Confused By Readings.

[kaydee]

Hi

I’m hoping someone will be able to make some sense of my readings as I’m confused.

I’m currently cycling a 138ltr tank with 12 Zebra Danios. The water was put in last Thursday and the Danios on Saturday. The tank is set up for Malawi Cichlids using marine sand & ocean rock. Running at a temp of 26/27 degrees. I have not used any material from an established tank the filter, pump and heater are all new. The tank was 2nd hand but was clean.
My readings are as follows, using Nutrafin Test.

.......................PH..........Ammonia...............Nitrite............Nitrate
Thursday........ 7.8
Friday ........ 8.0
Saturday.........8.0
Sunday...........8.2
Monday...........8.2...............trace................0.3
Tuesday..........8.2...............0.6..................0.5
Wednesday........8.2...............0.6..................0.8..................15

Apologies for the rubbish list, it wont let me copy in the one I have?




I’m a compleate beginner at keeping fish, this is my first tank. I have read books and trawled the internet and I was under the impression that the Ammonia will spike, then the Nitrite once they are at 0 Nitrate will give a reading. But I’m already getting Nitrate readings?
I’m baffled, can you shed any light??

Thanks in advance
Kerry

 

[Gvilleguy]

Hi Kerry,

You are still very early in the cycling of the tank. Did you read up on the process yet for cycling the tank with fish in? There is an article for it here:

Fish-In Cycle

Have you done any water changes yet to reduce the level of ammonia and nitrites?

Regarding the level of nitrate, I would not be too concerned with it yet. A level of 15 ppm is fairly low for nitrates, but, assuming no nitrates are present in your source water, it would indicate that you have some nitrites getting processed. So that is a good thing.

 

[Harlequins]

Test your tap water for nitrate,for a tank thats been barely been set up a week,its unusual to see nitrates just yet.

Has mentioned above,look at the link provided,it will tell you about the fish in cycle and links to the nitrogen cycle in general

Good luck