new tank fishless cycle

[toca]

I started a fishless cycle tank about 3 weeks ago using ace hardware ammonia after a week the nitrite and nitrate spiked up so i did a 60% water change and for the past 2 weeks i been adding ammonia to keep the ammonia going every time waiting for the ammonia to drop to 0 but my problem is that the nitrite and nitrate never drop is always 5.0 ppm and nitrate at 80ppm. am I doing something wrong? should i keep adding ammonia or just leave it alone until the nitrite drop... i also have the water level at 75% full and temp at 88.

[jimg]

add back whatever ammonia it takes to maintain .5-1 ppm over night. did you add anything to speed up cycle other than ammonia? 1 week is kind of quick without anything. I have had nitrites stay elevated for a few weeks. if you have nitrates then it should be cycled, nitrites could be up due to maybe too much ammonia being added.

[AFTICA]

With my test kits (Hagen Nutrafin) it says on the test kit for Nitrate that having high Nitrite can interfere with the test. I can confirm that it indeed does... it's a color test that shows varying degrees of purple in the prescence of Nitrate... problem is that the first reagent also shows purple in the prescence of Nitrite!


Once my Nitrites started dropping I was able to do the Nitrate test with no problem.

I did a complete cycle in 14 days on a 75 gallon... I did use Tetra Safestart at the start to boost / speed up the process. Below is basically what happened...


Day 1 - Doesed Ammonia up to 4.0 ppm Tested for Nitrite 0 PPM Tested for Nitrate 0 PPM
Day 2 - Tested for Ammonia 4.0 PPM
Day 3 - Tested for Ammonia 3.5 PPM (subjective guess - based on slightly lighter color)
Day 4 - Skipped testing today
Day 5 - Tested for Ammonia 3.0 PPM
Day 6 - Tested for Ammonia 2.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 0.8 PPM
Day 7 - Tested for Ammonia 1.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 1.6 PPM Dosed Tank back to 4.0 PPM
Day 8 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 3.3+ PPM Dosed Tank back to 4.0 PPM
Day 9 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 3.3+ PPM Tested PH PH 7.6 Dosed Tank back to 4.0 PPM
Day 10 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 3.3+ PPM Dosed Tank back to 4.0 PPM
Day 11 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 3.3+ PPM Dosed Tank back to 4.0 PPM
Day 12 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 3.3+ PPM Dosed Tank back to 3.0 PPM
Day 13 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 1.6 PPM Dosed Tank back to 3.0 PPM
Day 14 - Tested for Ammonia 0.0 PPM Tested for Nitrite 0 PPM Tested for Nitrate 20 ppm Dosed Tank back to 2.0 PPM


Just been Dosing now ammonia for the last couple of days to bring it up to 1 - 2 PPM only... During the entire time I did NOT do any water changes and did NOT use any water conditioner (ie PRIME) - I am on Well Water. Temp at 82 Inside are a Hydro II Sponge filter and an Aquaclear 70 with 2 sponges and a small bag of Fluval Biomax.

of course... YMMV etc...

[toca]

add back whatever ammonia it takes to maintain .5-1 ppm over night. did you add anything to speed up cycle other than ammonia? 1 week is kind of quick without anything. I have had nitrites stay elevated for a few weeks. if you have nitrates then it should be cycled, nitrites could be up due to maybe too much ammonia being added.

I used nutrafin cycle for the first 3 days... so you think the tank is cycled? should i stop adding ammonia then? and wait to see if the nitrite will drop.

[AFTICA]

I used nutrafin cycle for the first 3 days... so you think the tank is cycled? should i stop adding ammonia then? and wait to see if the nitrite will drop.

You have to keep adding ammonia basically right up to the day before you add the fish... the Nitrite will drop -

[jimg]

I used nutrafin cycle for the first 3 days... so you think the tank is cycled? should i stop adding ammonia then? and wait to see if the nitrite will drop.change out enough water to get nitrates down and keep adding ammonia to maintain 1ppm until the fish arrive, then do a decent wc to make sure no ammonia or nitrites are there and you should be good to go. I am very surprised the cycle worked keep testing daily until you know for sure what's happening.

[toca]

change out enough water to get nitrates down and keep adding ammonia to maintain 1ppm until the fish arrive, then do a decent wc to make sure no ammonia or nitrites are there and you should be good to go. I am very surprised the cycle worked keep testing daily until you know for sure what's happening.

I did a 75% water change last night and after 15 min i checked the nitrite and nitrate and they both were high. it seem like no matter what i do the nitrite and nitrate doesn't drop. :mad:

[AFTICA]

I did a 75% water change last night and after 15 min i checked the nitrite and nitrate and they both were high. it seem like no matter what i do the nitrite and nitrate doesn't drop. :mad:

well remember - NITRATE wont drop on it's own - your regular water changes will do that when you add the fish etc.. - so what your waiting for is the NITRITE to drop on it's own, due to the bactreria buildup etc... for me - that stage happened quickly... and went from off the chart to 0 ppm in a day or so. Remember that the bacteria that do the conversion from Nitrite to Nitrate are slower developing than the first stage ammonia eating bacteria...

Also check your PH - did it crash? That could stall the process...