Fishless cycle part 2

[Sum22]

Hi, I've been gone for a while since the internet/cable company in my area is terrible. But I have a connection back and wanted to post an update.

I started cycling my 29 g tank a seond time after I moved to Aurora, Co. It took 3 weeks. For 3 straight days I had 0 nitrites, nitrate about 10. I continued to add ammonia daily - about a capful taking the reading back to 2-4ppm. I can't tell the difference between the two to be honest.

I was excited and added my first fish - 5 harlequin rasboras.

I tested the water after 1 day in the tank ammonia 0, nitrites 1ppm and nitrates 10. So what gives? Any thoughts on why I'm getting nitrites again?

My fish seem ok, with the exception of one. It is very small and I wasn't sure it was going to make it. It was the only one that seemed stressed when I came in. The others were swimming around actively. I did a large water change today, about 20g out of 29 and tested again. Nitrites were still showing 1. The little fish seemed fine after the water change despite the high reading. I added extra water treatment just to be on the safe side.

I tested the tap water a couple of weeks ago and the reading were 0.

 

[neilanh]

How long from the time you completed your fishless cycle until you added the fish? Was there a period of time when you weren't dosing?

 

[Sum22]

3 days and I continued to dose with ammonia daily. Doing daily water changes on both of my fish tanks is time consuming and frustrating.......

I was reading another thread and the only other thing I can figure is I mistook the blue color. I swear it was light, like what is on the card, but the other thread said something about a dark blue meant that it was too much for the test to read....

 

[harmy4993]

how long have you been doing the cycle?

i had the problem with the nitrite reading. when it gets to high it almost the same color as the 0 reading just a little more green tint then blue. the only way i could tell the diffrence was by testing the tank and my tap water at the same time. tap water was blue 0 and the tank was a green bluish tint off the charts high.

 

[Sum22]

I started cycling in early july. I got a low nitrite reading, finally, the day before I broke down my qt tank so I could move.

I set it back up about 3 days after moving it, on August 2nd. I thought I'd be starting from scratch, but I started getting low nitrite readings again after 3 days. The nitrites continued to climb into for several days and started to fall on the 15. No nitrites were present begining on Aug 21.

I kept adding ammonia daily. Each day I would test before adding more ammonia and ammonia and nitrite readings were 0. I'm just at a loss.

My test kit works fine on my 10g tank, so I know that isn't the problem. I always get readings of .25 or . 50.

Would taking out my driftwood have anything to do with it? It wasn't sinking, so I pulled it out the day before I added fish. Everything still read 0 the day I got fish.

 

[harmy4993]

is your nitrate reading climbing?

 

[Sum22]

It rose, then fell to 0. Now it is steady at 1ppm.

 

[roka64]

Have you tested your source water?
Are you using liquid tests or the strips?

 

[Sum22]

Liquid test kit.

Water tests at 0.