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Thread: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

  1. #1
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    Default Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    I am having a bit of trouble getting a tank to cycle. I have a 45 gal tank with a Eheim 2215 canister filter, and an airstone and a powerhead for pumping more air into the tank. The tanks at this point is completely empty. Temp is @ 82.8F, PH 7.5, GK 7, KH 2, Nitrite 33+ppm, Nitrate 10ppm.

    My problem is that the tank can convert ammonia to nitrite with ease, but its just not converting nitrite to nitrate. Nitrite has been locked at 33+ ppm, and Nitrate 10 PPM. Both have been locked for close to a month now. Is it a KH problem? The KH out of my tap is 4 KH.

    Ok, now to complicate matters.

    I am doing a fishless cycling, since I could not get pure ammonia, I found a couple people online who have had success with "Everyday Living" brand ammonia hydroxide. I did the whole shaking thing and it doesnt suds or have fragrances in it. The bottle reads. (soft water, ammonium hydroxide, quality control agents) Vague right? I know this is probably the problem, but my resources are walmart and k-mart... anyone have any ideas here?? I know other are having success with this brand, but I'm not sure what to think. I do think that a company could make a dollar or two by selling pure ammonia at the local FS.

    I have read and read and read and read and everyone has a different option on how this is done. Some say ammonium hydroxide lowers alkalinity and totally screws up the process, while others have had compete success with ammonia hydroxide. Whats true? Some say after you dose the tank to 1-2 ppm (others say up to 5 ppm) of ammonia you should not put any more ammonia in till it cycles all the way through, others say just back the daily dosing to .5 to 1 ppm. Do you cut back, or stop dosing completely? How long can the nitrosomonas live without ammonia to eat? Some have said that the presence of high levels of ammonia will actually inhibit the growth of the nitrospira needed to convert the nitrite to nitrate. Is this true?

    Since I have been at this over a month now, actually closer to two, and nitrate levels are only at 10ppm, I would imagine my tank is practically pure nitrite around now.

    Any help suggestions and direction would be appreciated. If you where in my shoes, what would you do?

    To think.... all this trouble because I didn't want to hurt seed fish by making them live in a tank while it cycled.
    Last edited by maek999999999; 08-25-2007 at 03:07 PM.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    In 47 years of keeping fish I've never seen 33ppm of NO2...I don't even know if it can exist within an aquarium let alone a test kit that could read it....if it could, all your fish would be dead anyway, so it really doesn't matter...did you forget a decimal point What kits are you using

    While all the NO2 isn't being oxidized regardless of the reading the cycle is functioning or you wouldn't have any NO3.

    It would be a little difficault for ammonium hydroxide , NH4OH in H2, to drop pH or use up alkalinity since it has a pH of about 13 and hydroxides are at the opposite end of the pH scale...some one doesn't know what they are talking about.

    As far as the nitrogen cycle is concerned...nitrosomonas and nitrospira are only a couple of that nitrifiers that do the job...there's a whole group of them...a bio-film/ a matrix.

  3. #3
    Registered Member kaceyo's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    Either ammonia hydroxide or clear ammonia liquid from the grocery store will work fine. Are you doing ammonia tests to see where it is now? If your getting nitrites and nitrates then your ammonia is being coverted. If the ammonia level reaches 0ppm you'll need to supply more daily to keep the bacteria alive. I start out by taking it up to 5ppm ammo. Start testing for both ammo and nitrite in a few weeks, then, when nitrites start to rise and ammo starts to decline your almost there. Add enough ammo to take it back up to 5ppm every day. When the filter reaches the point that there is 0 ammo and 0 nitrite 24hrs after adding 5ppm ammo then it's done cycling. This can take from 3 to 8 weeks tho it usually takes mine 6 weeks. If the filter runs for long without ammonia at this point the bacteria will die off and you have to start again.
    Recheck your nitrite reading as 33ppm is way off and make sure you still have ammo in the system.

    Kacey

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    Opps... I missed a decimal point, its a tetra test. The high side of the scale is from 3.3-33 mg/l.

    Yes, I have been testing the ammonia levels everyday. Close to two months ago, I had seed fish in the tank, till about 4 weeks in they developed anchor worm, rather than treat the fish I emptied the tank and removed the fish. I had the fish in the tank for about a month, So it was starting to cycle when I pulled them. After that I moved to using ammo from a bottle. I have check the Ammo reading everyday for the last 3 weeks. I was running it up to 1 PPL every morning and within 24 hours it was reading 0 ppm. My curiosity was that after a second month, my nitrites had spiked and i was getting nitrate readings... but the nitrate readings where the same every day, and have been for the last 3 weeks. Maybe i wasnt giving it enough ammo to start with. I dont know. I did however, find another type of bottled ammonia from one of the posts here, I will run it up to 5 ppm and see what happens. Thanks for the help.

    Out of curiosity. I have noticed several people using sponge filters in their tanks, I am using an Eheim 2215 on a 45 gal tank, is it advisable or wise to place a sponge filter on the intake for the canister filter??
    Last edited by maek999999999; 08-25-2007 at 09:18 PM.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    The last leg of the cycle always seems to take the longest. What is your pH right now? When I do a fishless cycle, I have to watch that the pH doesn't crash because our KH is so low. Low pH stalls the cycling process.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Cycling - where are all my Nitrates? HELP.

    My ph is 8.

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