Nitrite Drop Without Processing Ammonia?

[nike12301]

So I'm fishless cycling.

My ammonia dropped a few days ago. Today, my nitrites dropped straight to zero out of nowhere. My nitrates are at 40.

Looks like things are progressing quite nicely (thanks to some mature filter media).

Only problem is every couple of days since the ammonia dropped, I would add a little bit to keep feeding the cycle and it would be back down to around 1 by the next day.

Yesterday I did the same thing. But when I measured the ammonia, there didn't seem to be any drop.

I know a cycled tank should process 5 ppm of ammonia in 12 hours. My tank seems to be almost cycled but clearly isn't doing that even after the nitrite spike.

Is it normal for the nitrite part of the cycle to be done before the ammonia?

 

[waterdrop]

Its not that unusual for the two bacterial populations to get off the usual track. Just because there is a normal sequence of events we see does not mean it will necessarily be the same when you add mature media. Its important not to change your process just because you've added mature media. You still want to add ammonia to 5ppm at the same time of day if its gone all the way down to zero within the previous 24 hours. You always add at the 24 hour mark if you're going to add. Being consistent seems to help the bacteria and your own detection of what's going on with them.

There can be lots of wrinkles in the final weeks or days leading down to getting double-zeros at 12 hours, so just keep plugging away and recording carefully and being patient.

~~waterdrop~~