Confused...

[The_Wolfman]

Hey is this normal when cycling...my ammonia isn't really dropping but my nitrites are starting to rise?

I got my ammonia up to 4ppm a couple of days ago, then by accident, bumped it up to 8ppm, so yesterday i did a 50% percent water change and got it back down to 4ppm. Today I tested and its still at around 4ppm but now my Nitrites have gone up to 0.50ppm...is that normal cause I thought the ammonia was suppose to start dropping as the nitrites started rising?

 

[jsoong]

Well it will .... But each ppm of NO2 produced use 1 ppm of ammonia. You have only 0.5 ppm of NO2, the ammonia will only drop by 0.5 .... not enough to be picked up by your test kit.

Give it a day or 2 for the nitrite to spike, then you should see the ammonia falls. <And you would then need to dose some ammonia to keep feeding the nitrifying bugs.>