Cycling question, 1st set of dosed readings

[Ruffers99]

Hey All, so I was wondering if you could calm my nerves a little and let me know if there is anything wrong with the following.

So I setup the tank and I have a couple of air stones in there and I cranked the heater up to 82 degrees.

I used an online calc and dosed my tank with 22.2 mil of ACE ammonia.

Left it for 24 hrs and took my first API readings last night. I was surprised to see elevated Nitrates? i was expecting to only see them post the Nitrite spike.
Do I have some strange problem? I was going to just wait for the Ammonia to start to drop then keep it dosed up to 3-4 ppm.

My tap water was as follows:

GH 9
KH 5
PH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10

Tank before Ammonia but after 48 hour settle in
GH 9
KH 4
PH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10

THen dosed with Ammonia and left for 24hrs

PH 7.6
Ammonia 4
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

TBH the I cant really see the difference on the color chart between 10 and 20 Nitrate

 

[evil Nick]

For some reason mine was the same way. I thought I somehow skipped an entire process. I also used the primer bacteria to start it and had a couple snails and shrimp so I thought perhaps that accelerated things.

It didn't last and those trates soon left and my ammonia went through the roof.
Spiked to 8 and then I did a small water change (which did nothing). A day or so later it went to 4, now around 2 and trites started showing up. Im doing another reading now. I didn't do fishless for "certain" reasons, but Im sure you should probably keep spiking until those trites show up.

Im honestly new to cycling but since I sort of had the same thing happen I thought it might at least ease you a bit.

 

[Ruffers99]

Yeah it did, thanks sir!

Just wasnt sure, obviously you NEED to be patient (which is near impossible for me), so extra twitchy about how things progress. im not going to dose the ammo again tho until it starts dropping.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[evil Nick]

Yeah it did, thanks sir!

Just wasnt sure, obviously you NEED to be patient (which is near impossible for me), so extra twitchy about how things progress. im not going to dose the ammo again tho until it starts dropping.

Thanks for the comments.

cool man, good luck

 

[trennamw]

Keep being patient ... Allow at least 10 days if you get donated filter media from an established tank, and a month or more without. And don't use the bottled bacteria except dr tims.

The nitrate didn't come from the ammonia unless the ammonia went down too. Sometimes the nitrite spike happens between tests, in my opinion, but if that's the case ammonia would be down.

Settle in for a long process!

And get a Brita filter for yourself. You shouldn't be drinking that tap water!


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.

 

[Ruffers99]

The nitrate didn't come from the ammonia unless the ammonia went down too. Sometimes the nitrite spike happens between tests, in my opinion, but if that's the case ammonia would be down.

Ok thanks good to know!

And get a Brita filter for yourself. You shouldn't be drinking that tap water!

It may be more 10 to 20, but we dont drink the water from the tap, we have filtrated fridge water

I added PundGuru's Filter Balls to my filter, which also has his media w/trace elements so hopefully it wont take as long as if I had nothing to seed with.