What Can/should I Do Now?

[Jcartwright]

After waiting a week for something to happen, in my cycling tank, i had to take out 50% of the water so i can move it away from the wall to have Radiators fitted. I filled the tank back up and checked the ammonia, i had to add some to boost it back up again. 24 hours later i did a ammonia test and noticed that the colour was slightly lighter so i did a Nitrite test which showed 0.25ppm (i got quite excited). I checked again this morning the Ammonia was about 2ppm the Nitrite was about 0.50ppm so i checked the Nitrate and it showed between 5 and 10ppm.
Does this sound right? and What can i or should i do now?

 

[atmmachine816]

As ammonia goes down, nitrites go up, then nitrates will go up some once nitrites go down. I've never done adding pure ammonia which sounds like what you are doing but just let the cycle take it's course. It's sounds right, is that what you wanted?

 

[thegnu]

i think you are about where you should be and are doing very well. have a look at this, it may help. http/www.bestfish.com/newtank3.html i would check for nitrates in your tap water. most tap water has some nitrates in it. checking this can help so you dont get false readings

 

[Jcartwright]

As long as everything sounds OK to you experts then i'm very happy.

 

[rdd1952]

I wouldn't expect to see nitrates that quick. The nitrite processiing bacteria are slower to develop than those that process ammonia. If the ammonia just began to drop, it is doubtful that there would be enough bacteria to process enough nitrate to have 10+ ppm of nitrate. Have you checked your tap water to see if there is nitrate in it?

As for what to do now, just keep raising the ammonia back up every time it drops back to 0 and wait on the huge nitrite spike to drop.

 

[Jcartwright]

I've checked my tap water for Nitrate and it showed that there was very little (if any) in there i checked again this morning the Ammonia was still at 2ppm, Nitrite at 2ppm and the Nitrate between 10 and 20ppm.

At the start of the cycle i added a product called START-OK. In the instructions it said to add some fish, but, as i'm doing a fishless cycle i added Ammonia instead. Would this be why i'm getting these results?

 

[rdd1952]

It's possible. Those bacteria starters are useless. They contain very little bacteria if any and based on the article I read a couple days ago, that bacteria may not be nitrifying bacteria at all.

One thing I forgot to ask, what kind of test are you using, liquid or strips. Strips can be very inaccurate.

 

[Jcartwright]

I'm using the API master kit.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sounds good, there's no way you can say how fast a cycle shoudl go, i've heard of them being done in a week so if yours is going quick then good for you!

do remember though that nitrite takes about twice as long to go as ammonia does.

 

[Jcartwright]

8) 8) 8)