Where Is My Ammonia Going?

[Desdemona]

So my ammonia seems to be going down but I keep getting a fat zero on my Nitrite levels. The ammonia was left over from my betta rocks and old water from my other tank I am cycling with fish. I went from 1.0 to. 5 to .25 today. The. 5 was yesterday. The fish water was a solid 1.0 so it didn't dilute. Are my lvls to low? I found some good ammonia today so I am going to bump the level up tonight.

 

[hilly81]

If you are cycling with fish in you dont want to be adding ammonia. It will only cause the fish to suffer more than they will be already.

 

[Desdemona]

No fish in the tank, I have one fish with and one without. This is the without tank. Sorry if it sounded confusing. I am not a expert but I know enough not to add ammonia to a tank with fish, promise! hehe

Anyways, I bumped my fishless tank today with some ammonia in a bottle so we will see how things go. Hopefully it starts to cycle soon. I am going to contact a LFS tomorrow and see if I can get some bacteria from one of their tanks.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have plants, even algae, it could account for you seeing a drop in ammonia (nitrogen) without a rise in nitrites. Your plan to continue using a fishless cycle sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[waterdrop]

Well, it just takes time, usually, to fishless cycle. Some tanks will drop their ammonia to zero ppm and need it added again a few times before nitrite(NO2) begins to appear in the testing. That is normal and in my experience the fishless cycles that take more on the order of a month at least are the ones that then don't come back and spike on people after fish is added.

~~waterdrop~~