Ph? What Should It Be In Fishless Cycle

[scotslasszoe]

Ok fishless cycle going funny

been doing fishless for a week. after day 2 i had nitrite. 0.25 then it dissapeared?

My PH was at 6. Realised that i had a few pads of carbon in My Eheim 2217 so removed them yest.

PH now at 7.2 Temp 32

My Nitrate is at 40 and ammonia 6.0

If i am right, is it not that the ammonia converts to nitrite then nitrite converts to nitrate?

If so then why dont i have Nitrite but have Nitrate at 40?

Cant get my head around this.

Zoe

 

[Angel_Queen]

Have you tested your tap water for NitrAte?

 

[rdd1952]

The optimal pH for bacteria reproduction seems to be about 7 to 8. I wouldn't go to great lengths though to try to raise your pH higher than the 7 you currently have. As for the lack of nitrite, I would also wonder if you have nitrate in your tap water. If your ammonia is dropping and the nitrate is rising, then I guess it's possible the nitrite is being processed as fast as it is produced but that would be highly unlikely. The key questions are the nitrate in your tap water and whether the nitrate in the tank is rising.

 

[scotslasszoe]

There is No Nitrate in my tap water.

Just seems so strange as i am not seeing No2?

Zoe

 

[backtotropical]

Zoe,

I hope this doesn't sound daft.

The only thing you need to test at the moment is ammonia. Don't test anything else until ammonia is processing in less than 12 hrs.

Then start testing nitrite too. By this time, nitrite will probably be processing. Test only ammonia and nitrite until they are both processing in under 12 hrs.

Hey presto, you're cycled!

An occasional PH check is the only other thing which would be required, to make sure your cycle wont stall. So long as PH is 6.0 or above, you're fine.

Ignore nitrate until you are cycled. It can, and often does confuse matters unnecessarily.

Backtotropical

 

[rdd1952]

Ignore nitrate until you are cycled. It can, and often does confuse matters unnecessarily.

I would disagree. If you don't ever check nitrate, how do you know that any nitrite is being processed? It could be building and building without any being processed into nitrate as someone recently has experienced. If you didn't check the nitrate to see that, you would go on forever without knowing you had a problem. I certainly don't think it's something you need to test every day but it does need to be checked at least until you see that it is steadily rising every day.

 

[backtotropical]

Obviously i didn't cover all bases. Surely you would notice nitrite wasn't processing when you started testing it? If that was the case, of course you would have to test nitrate, but in most cases, that wouldn't happen.

I suppose you could say, i was referring to if the cycle went according to plan. If it didn't you would realise from the ammonia and nitrite tests, and then you would have to take further action.

 

[rdd1952]

Surely you would notice nitrite wasn't processing when you started testing it?

The nitrite generally is off the chart during the first week and stays that way until it finally finishes cycling and falls back to 0 almost overnight so testing nitrite really doesn't tell you if any is being processed. Until it finally drops back to 0, the only way to tell if nitrite is being processed or not is to test nitrates to see if they are rising.