Another Cycle Question-- No NitrItes but NitrAtes?

[PaulG5372]

Hi All--
I have a newer 20 Gallon tank that I set up on 5/18. It has a Penguin Bio-Wheel 150 Filter, heater with water being kept at about 83F. I have an API Test Kit and have treated the water with Tetra Aquasafe Plus. I have also treated with Tetra Safestart on 5/24. I did this based on the advice of some friends, but I now realize this wasn't necessary but based on what I've read It seems as it shouldn't cause any real harm (I hope!) I also seeded with a few cups of gravel from an established aquarium the same day as adding the safestart. I added an airstone and 2 small plants on 5/27. Also-- pH when starting the tank was at 7.4. I haven't tested since because I thought the results would be skewed with the cycle process.

I left the tank for a few days until I could find a good source of ammonia and added that on 5/20. I had the levels to near 4ppm. I have tested every day since adding the ammonia. I saw no drops in ammonia except for the time that I added some more water because the level was getting lower, and making a little more noise than I would like. I only needed to add a few cups of water.

After this and currently the water has 2 ppm of ammonia. I have tested for nitrItes daily have had a constant 0 ppm reading. Yesterday, 5/27, one week from adding the ammonia I decided to test nitrAtes just to get a feel for the test and because I was curious. NitrAte levels were between 20-40 ppm (hard to see the exact colors on the test). I tested the water used to fill the aquarium and it has 5 pmm NitrAtes.

What do you guys think about my results? Why the higher nitrAtes but no nitrItes? Any advice on what to do next, how the cycle is doing?

 

[eco23]

Hi All--
I have a newer 20 Gallon tank that I set up on 5/18. It has a Penguin Bio-Wheel 150 Filter, heater with water being kept at about 83F. I have an API Test Kit and have treated the water with Tetra Aquasafe Plus. I have also treated with Tetra Safestart on 5/24. I did this based on the advice of some friends, but I now realize this wasn't necessary but based on what I've read It seems as it shouldn't cause any real harm (I hope!) I also seeded with a few cups of gravel from an established aquarium the same day as adding the safestart. I added an airstone and 2 small plants on 5/27. Also-- pH when starting the tank was at 7.4. I haven't tested since because I thought the results would be skewed with the cycle process.

I left the tank for a few days until I could find a good source of ammonia and added that on 5/20. I had the levels to near 4ppm. I have tested every day since adding the ammonia. I saw no drops in ammonia except for the time that I added some more water because the level was getting lower, and making a little more noise than I would like. I only needed to add a few cups of water.

After this and currently the water has 2 ppm of ammonia. I have tested for nitrItes daily have had a constant 0 ppm reading. Yesterday, 5/27, one week from adding the ammonia I decided to test nitrAtes just to get a feel for the test and because I was curious. NitrAte levels were between 20-40 ppm (hard to see the exact colors on the test). I tested the water used to fill the aquarium and it has 5 pmm NitrAtes.

What do you guys think about my results? Why the higher nitrAtes but no nitrItes? Any advice on what to do next, how the cycle is doing?

Welcome to the site . Scientifically it makes no sense...no3 is the end product of the nitrifying bacteria which converts the ammo > no2 > no3, so without nitrItes...there should be no nitrAtes (other than what is from the tap). That being said, the "instant cycling" products are known to cause some very odd occurrences which are beyond rational understanding, I have seen it more times than I can count. There is the slight possibility that the seeded material is actively converting it and increasing the no3 amount, but I would expect to be seeing a much faster reduction of ammo if that was the case. I wish I could give you a nice, clean explanation...but with the bacteria in a bottle products, things sometimes tend to bend the rules of science, lol.

 

[PaulG5372]

Thanks eco! Made no sense to me either. What would your (or others?) recommend to do? Just let the tank be and hope the cycle goes on by itself? Or should I do a PWC now?

 

[eco23]

Thanks eco! Made no sense to me either. What would your (or others?) recommend to do? Just let the tank be and hope the cycle goes on by itself? Or should I do a PWC now?

If you haven't already seen it, check out the guide in my signature. I'd just pretend you never added the stuff and continue on as normal. The only real change I'd make is to make sure you thoroughly test the integrity of the bio-filter once the tank appears cycled before adding fish. It should all be in my guide . Feel free to shoot any questions you come across at me.

 

[PaulG5372]

I did see your guide eco, and it has helped a lot! I will just continue checking and cross my fingers to see some nitrites! Will post results when they change.

 

[PaulG5372]

I did a PWC today as you recommend in your guide if the cycle stalls, and because you said it couldn't really hurt anything. It has been 11 days since the initial does of ammonia. No changes before I did the water change today aside from nitrates appearing a little higher, no change in ammonia and no change in nitrates.

I dosed ammonia again today to and ammonia is at 3 ppm, 0 nitrites, and haven't checked the nitrates just yet.

Also, is it normal and OK to have bubbles as in the picture above where the air pump is? They disappear with seconds of unplugging the air pump. I am assuming so, and it seems like it is common sense that it is OK and normal but I just want to be sure I'm not doing anything wrong or have any problems that might be slowing the cycle!

 

[jetajockey]

It's not unusual to not see nitrites at all if you are using Tetra Safestart. It contains the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate, so if they colonize like they are supposed to, you may miss that part completely in testing.

 

[eco23]

It's not unusual to not see nitrites at all if you are using Tetra Safestart. It contains the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate, so if they colonize like they are supposed to, you may miss that part completely in testing.

I've never heard this...but I suppose if the product actually worked as advertised its plausible. Personally I can't see how you wouldn't be able to track the conversion of 4ppm ammo through the process into no3...but I've got an open mind to these cycling products since I don't understand the engineering behind them... and I guess anything is possible, just hard to wrap my mind around.

The bubbles look fine. They don't appear sudsy and look like normal aeration from an air stone.

How quickly is your ammo dropping? The reason I don't understand the lack of no2 is from personal experience. When I did my first fishless cycle and it fully completed, I tested it's integrity numerous times before stocking. Remember the BB was fully established at this point...when I dosed up to 4ppm ammonia, the conversion was visible with my API kit. I could watch the ammo drop, no2 rise and then turn into no3 before it all zeroed out. Once I stocked, the ammo and no2 were always 0 because the fish were producing a small steady stream of ammo that is constantly converted, as opposed to a massive and instant dose that it quickly gets gobbled up. If I knew how to put the emoticon with the puzzled look into the post...it'd be here, lol.

If you haven't used the pinch of ground up fish food trick...that'll also help the little buggers grow.

 

[jetajockey]

A small amount of nitrogenous waste could be utilized by the live plants in the tank also.

One thing to remember is that there are multiple species of bacteria at work here, and with an inoculation of all of them, there could be a large amount of nitrite-converting bacteria in comparison to the ammonia-converting bacteria. With that in mind, it would be plausible to think that the ammonia-converting bacteria has done a little bit and it was quickly converted through to nitrates by the excess population of nitrite converters.

 

[eco23]

A small amount of nitrogenous waste could be utilized by the live plants in the tank also.

One thing to remember is that there are multiple species of bacteria at work here, and with an inoculation of all of them, there could be a large amount of nitrite-converting bacteria in comparison to the ammonia-converting bacteria. With that in mind, it would be plausible to think that the ammonia-converting bacteria has done a little bit and it was quickly converted through to nitrates by the excess population of nitrite converters.

You may be absolutely right with these bottled bacteria products...I just don't know the info on them. In a normal (without cycling products) fishless cycle I would think it would be pretty much unheard of if not impossible. After all the ammo to no2 bacteria would have to develop first, with the no2 to no3 obviously lagging behind simply because it doesn't have a food source to colonize until the first bacteria begins producing the nitrItes. That said, this isn't the first time I've heard of very odd parameters during "instant cycle" processes...so that may absolutely what's happening...again, pretend there's a confused emoticon here, haha

 

[jetajockey]

haha. yeah I know what you mean, even in a regular fish-in cycle without any additives you'll often see a time frame in which the nitrite -> nitrate bacteria have to catch up.

One problem in testing bacteria in a bottle products, the kind that use the wrong 'land based (loose term)' bacteria, heterotrophs, is that they will work, but it literally takes hundreds of thousands if not millions of them to do the same job that the proper nitrifiying autotrophs do. The other issue is that many of these bacteria are unable to sustain themselves in any long term setting, which is why some of these snakeoil-bacteria products suggest redosing at water change intervals.

As to how much this interferes with the natural nitrifiers growth in the tank, who knows.

The important thing when choosing a bacteria-in-a-bottle product is to pick the kind that has the kind that naturally occur in the tank so this isn't an issue to begin with.

 

[eco23]

haha. yeah I know what you mean, even in a regular fish-in cycle without any additives you'll often see a time frame in which the nitrite -> nitrate bacteria have to catch up.

One problem in testing bacteria in a bottle products, the kind that use the wrong 'land based (loose term)' bacteria, heterotrophs, is that they will work, but it literally takes hundreds of thousands if not millions of them to do the same job that the proper nitrifiying autotrophs do. The other issue is that many of these bacteria are unable to sustain themselves in any long term setting, which is why some of these snakeoil-bacteria products suggest redosing at water change intervals.

As to how much this interferes with the natural nitrifiers growth in the tank, who knows.

The important thing when choosing a bacteria-in-a-bottle product is to pick the kind that has the kind that naturally occur in the tank so this isn't an issue to begin with.

I think you just explained the numerous bio-filter crashes I've seen with people using many of these products. So do you believe the heterotrophs can basically outcompete the normal nitrifying bacteria found in a naturally cycled tank for the early life stages of the tank?

 

[jetajockey]

I think its definitely possible, not in efficiency, but by sheer numbers.

I think eventually the natural biofilter would establish itself since it is so much better at it, but since its reproduction rate is significantly slower, who knows how long itd take.

It definitely does explain the out of nowhere crashes.

The moral of the story, if you use a bacteria booster product, choose wisely, they all claim to work/have the right bacteria, so it takes more research.

 

[librarygirl]

I'm having the same issue! After three weeks of fishless cycling with no drop in ammonia and no nitrates or nitrites, I purchased a seeded sponge filter online. Within 24 hours of installing it, my ammo dropped to 0.5, no nitrItes, but for the first time showed nitrAtes of 2.5. After that, ammo didn't drop again and nitrates got up to 5 but that's it. That was almost two weeks ago. A few days ago, getting more frustrated, I purchased Tetra SafeStart and threw the bottle in. I also cut up the sponge filter I bought and put a few pieces in with the tank's filter. It might be too early to test as it's only been a couple of days since I added the SafeStart, but I tested today and ammonia seems about the same, maybe dropped 1 pm from 3 to 2, but that could be wishful thinking, still zero nitrItes, but nitrAtes are at their highest of about 10 - 20 (hard to tell the difference between the two colors, but at least 10). I'm hoping it'll get better from here, but who knows.

I also have a lot of bubbles in my tank (at one point they actually turned to suds which freaked me out and did a few pwc to get rid of them, still have no idea what it was but it happened right after I added the sponge filter).

Seems like we have a similar cycle! It'll be great when we actually get some fish lol Good lucK!

 

[PaulG5372]

I've never heard this...but I suppose if the product actually worked as advertised its plausible. Personally I can't see how you wouldn't be able to track the conversion of 4ppm ammo through the process into no3...but I've got an open mind to these cycling products since I don't understand the engineering behind them... and I guess anything is possible, just hard to wrap my mind around.

The bubbles look fine. They don't appear sudsy and look like normal aeration from an air stone.

How quickly is your ammo dropping? The reason I don't understand the lack of no2 is from personal experience. When I did my first fishless cycle and it fully completed, I tested it's integrity numerous times before stocking. Remember the BB was fully established at this point...when I dosed up to 4ppm ammonia, the conversion was visible with my API kit. I could watch the ammo drop, no2 rise and then turn into no3 before it all zeroed out. Once I stocked, the ammo and no2 were always 0 because the fish were producing a small steady stream of ammo that is constantly converted, as opposed to a massive and instant dose that it quickly gets gobbled up. If I knew how to put the emoticon with the puzzled look into the post...it'd be here, lol.

If you haven't used the pinch of ground up fish food trick...that'll also help the little buggers grow.

I'm puzzled just as much as you are. All I know is that I wish I still worked the the biology department lab of my college... I could get my hands on pretty much any bacteria stock I wanted!

Ammonia levels were dropping very slowly, you could hardly see a difference day to day. I did see a nearly 50% drop within about 3 days , but that also included me topping the tank off a good amount.

I'll check all the levels again tomorrow and post.

 

[PaulG5372]

Current Water Chem:

6/1: 12:30PM -- 20 hours after PWC.
Ammonia: 2.5 ppm ? (Slightly less than yesterday)
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm
pH: 7.6

Also added the pinch of crushed up fish food yesterday, as suggested.

 

[PaulG5372]

6/2: 4:45PM
Ammonia: .5 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm

So I saw a pretty good and apparent ammonia drop, some promising results! But I do have 2 small plants in the tank, but I'm not guessing they could cause that much of a drop? (Pic of plants in tank included for reference) Still not seeing any nitrites though, although I understand there can be a lag in them showing up.

This is the biggest change i've seen yet in ammonia results. Hoping its a step in the right direction!!

 

[PaulG5372]

Also should I be dosing ammonia now or waiting for it to drop further?

 

[eco23]

Also should I be dosing ammonia now or waiting for it to drop further?

Bring it right on back up to 4ppm every 24 hrs

 

[PaulG5372]

Thanks eco, you're a great help, will post results again soon!