Should I Be Seeing... ?

[Trickerie]

Hey all,

I've had my active sponge filter from angelsplus in my tank for 2 days now. I cut up and stuffed half of it in my HoB filter, and hung the remaining block in the tank using the magnet. I added some ammonia, up to 3ppm and they have taken 2 days to process it to 0. However, I'm still seeing no nitrates. I have plenty of nitrites (dark purple on the API master kit). Is this normal? I thought once you added the active filter, both kinds of bacteria would be present right away. Maybe I'm mistaken? My PH is steady at 7.5 like normal. If I should be seeing nitrates already, what could be the problem???

PS. I added all the water that was in the bag of the sponge, per angelsplus instructions.

 

[Jess1ca]

I'm having the same problem! I bought 2 active filters and I'm showing ammonia but no Trites or trates?!?!

 

[jlk]

Sometimes they can take up to week to seed your tank with good bacteria- dont worry! I would drop your amm down to 2ppm (and no higher) for the next couple of days until you see everything being processed. Let us know how things go!

 

[Trickerie]

Should I crank my heater back up to 85? I lowered it thinking I was going to get ready for some fish

 

[jlk]

Up to you- warmer water is more ideal for bacterial growth but ive always cycled without the benefit of heaters so it will work either way.

 

[Trickerie]

And one last question.... Should I bring down the nitrites with a water change? They are reading 5ppm or higher on the api kit. Can this stall the cycle?

 

[jlk]

Ask away! A water change isnt necessary unless your nitrites have been this high for awhile but it wont hurt anything if you want to do one.

 

[HeatherW]

hang in there guys!! give it a week and let's see where you are. I bet you will see some big changes by then, but you have to give it time to do its thing. my filter made a huge difference, but I don't think I saw the change in two days ...

 

[librarygirl]

Every filter is different depending on how long it was in the tank before you got it. Nitrites are a good thing. For the nitrate test, it can be finicky. Shake both bottles and bang them a few times on a hard surface while shaking. Shake and bang bottle #2 for a full 30 seconds, then shake the tube vigorously for a full 60 seconds and wait 5 minutes for the results. If you don't do it this way it can cause false readings (bottle #2 has reagent powder that can get clumped and cause false readings).

 

[Trickerie]

5 going on 6 days now and still no movement in nitrates I've been dosing very low amounts of ammonia (1-2ppm) since I already have a ton of nitrites. Do I need to just keep waiting it out and keep doing what im doing?

 

[jlk]

Is your ammonia zeroing out every day? It may be time to do a water change to bring your nitrites down to a readable level (2ppm or less) when you have a chance (you dont have to do this today). Then just continue with the low dose of amm until your nitrite>nitrate bacteria catch up. Once they catch up, we can gradually increase the amm a bit over a few days to allow the bb to adjust upwards.

 

[Trickerie]

The ammonia is taking a bit over a day, and never goes below 0.25ppm. I'm guessing thats because of my ph/temp combo (7.5/85f). The thing is, my tap water has a bit of nitrate in it, and I've yet to see it increase at all from that point. It reads between 0-5ppm nitrate every single time I test, no matter how hard I bang those bottles! I will probably give it another day or two before I do a water change, since I just replenished and dosed ammonia today.

 

[Trickerie]

Well, ammonia zeroed out again (from 3-4ppm, in a day), and still no change in the nitrates, nitrites still very high (I know thats redundant, but I test both to make sure both tests match up logically)

Guess ill be doing a large water change tomorrow to bring down nitrites to a readable level