day 5 off fishless cycle tests opinions?

[flitabout]

Ok so another thread go me thinking and went through and tested my tank for a second time today here are the results. I used Cycle by nutrafin and wow are these weird....

The ammo test is lighter than in the pic so I am thinking that is 3ppm

 

[flitabout]

Anybody? Ideas I have high nitrate, high ammo and low nitrite. Do I do a water change leave it? I am really confused with these readings.

 

[Fishperson]

Anybody? Ideas I have high nitrate, high ammo and low nitrite. Do I do a water change leave it? I am really confused with these readings.

If you are fishless cycling then you just do what you would always do. I don't think high nitrate can stall a cycle, but you might want to do a wc just in case.

If you are fish in cycling, then you need to lower ammo and nitrate, but I'm assuming you're not.

 

[flitabout]

Nope no fish But it weird I haven't added any ammo and it hasn't dropped and I have trace nitrite and high nitrate. Where are these coming from? The last time I added ammo was on Sunday. I am so lost on this one. I am going to do a w/c to get those nitrates down just to be on the safe side.

 

[liulady]

When is the last time that you added ammo? It has to be coming from somewhere...

Have you tested your tap water to make sure that it reads zero for everything? Some people find that they have ammo, nitrites and/or nitrates in their tap water.

If the tap water is zero. I'd say that the last time you added ammonia, it must have been to a sky-high level and it is just now starting to convert to nitrites. Which still doesn't quite explain the sky-high nitrates. (Talking out loud here...sorry I'm not more help!)

 

[Fishperson]

Well if this cycle started 5 days ago, then we can deduce this (I feel like a detective ):

SOME ammonia was converted to nitrite, because without that there would be no nitrite or nitrate.

LOTS of nitrite was converted into nitrate, because there is lots of nitrate, and if it gets that high in 5 days, it must have a huge supply of "food", as in nitrite.

IF it has that "food", nitrite, then there must be ammonia, making that food.

So somehow there is some amount of ammonia going into your tank, and some of it is being converted, otherwise how would there be nitrates in there.

That deduction is correct unless:

The tank already had nitrates in it, somehow.

The bb in a bottle had ammo, nitrite, or nitrate in it.

You added something else (fertilizer, ph up/down, etc.) to the tank.

Do any of those ^^^ apply to you?

 

[flitabout]

Sunday was the last time the nitrates when like sky high out of no where. I am sure my plants love it.
I did a water change numbers are as follows now
ammo-1ppm,
nitrite-less than .25ppm (not blue but not purple either)
Nitrate-20/30ppm
I am going to let it sit there and not test again until tomorrow morning when I normally do the tests and see where my ammo is. Not sure where I will go from there, I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm not sure what to do with this creepy cycle

 

[flitabout]

I did add fert on Monday I did a water change on tuesday because of brown algae. At that time when I did the water change ammo was 4ppm, nitrites0 and nitrates0. I didn't test after the water change as it was for the brown algae. I tested this morning and these are the results I got I did reread the directions for the nitrate and I wasn't shaking the 2nd bottle before adding to the vial but the rest was done correctly.

I tested tap water on Friday before I set up and it was 0 on everything I didn't actually do the test until Saturday and it was done with aeration for 24hrs to off gas it.

 

[Fishperson]

Hmmm, very strange. Some of the nitrate could come from the fertilizer, but other than that I don't see why that is happening.