So I started a fishless cycle on January 11 and I have been able to covert 4ppm of ammonia to Nitrates in 24 hrs. My tank is 30 gallon and planted. My Ph is holding at 7.6 but my nitrites are sky high. I have been doing a few 90% water changes (down to the sand) and the nitrites will get lower but then climb again. Is this normal? Am I just waiting for the nitrite eating bacteria to grow? If so, should I continue to feed the tank ammonia like I have been doing?
Cycling Nitrite Level
- Thread starter P2PDAVE
- Start date
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molliwopp
Aquarium Advice Addict
Do you mean your able to add ammonia and it converts it to nitrite? Nitrite then converts to nitrate.
molliwopp
Aquarium Advice Addict
If your getting reading for nitrate and you werent before your almost done. Ammonia gets converted to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate.
molliwopp
Aquarium Advice Addict
Keep feeding the tank until it takes 24hrs for ammo and nitrites to read 0 all you have is a nitrate reading. No need to keep doing water changes unless you ph drops below 6.
molliwopp
Aquarium Advice Addict
Once the nitrite bacteria start growing(which they have), its quite quick and nitrites will drop quite dramatically. Once your nitrites drop to 0 keeping adding ammo and like i said before,when your tank can convert ammo all the way through to nitrate in 24hr youre complete. Id say you probably only have afew days left now.
librarygirl
Look It Up
It's normal yes. The nitrite phase is the longest, taking about 3 weeks on average. Doing a water change to get the nitrites down was good but yes they do shoot up again. Keep feeding the ammonia. IF nitrites are still 5+ for a week or more or/and ammonia conversion slows or/and PH drops, then do more water changes to get nitrites down again. Until then it's just waiting for the nitrites to drop to 0 on their own and then you're done.
I just wanted to report to everyone who is currently cycling a new tank to hang in there. The process does work. I tested my nitrite levels like I have been doing every day and yesterday morning...they were down to zero. I added ammonia and this morning the level was still at zero. All done....finally.
FishieMomma
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2011
- Messages
- 499
Yay! Glad to hear it!
librarygirl
Look It Up
Congratulations!!!
