Water change not working

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Nostromo

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 26, 2017
Messages
46
Location
Lexinton S.C
You all know now I am in the middle of my fishless cycle this is day 21 for me tested my nitrites today they were 5pmm I did a 50% water change about 12.30pm this afternoon tested again at 7.10pm they are still the same they never came down is this normal or do I have to do another water change , I did add prime to my water please help
 
If a 50% water change didn't change the nitrite reading then it means your nitrite are 10ppm or higher.
 
So do I need to another water change and if so how much, my nitrate is 5pmm, and my ammonia is 1pmm. If I do another water change when would be the best time to add the ammonia back up to 4pmm thanks. If I have to do another water change will this be harmful to my cycle . I have worked hard to get where I am now and I don't want to mess things up thanks
 
If a 50% water change didn't change the nitrite reading then it means your nitrite are 10ppm or higher.

^^ +1^^
You can try to add the drops and multiply the result by 2 to get a higher reading accurately .
I am not sure on doing water changes on a fishless cycle...
The nitrites are the slowest growing so removing them to add more ammonia makes little sense to me?
 
For a fishless cycle, do a 90% water change, see if that gets the nitrItes down to a readable level.

I had the same issue, I did 2 50% water changes a day apart and then a 90% the 3rd day, just to get it back on the chart. I read somewhere that nitrItes above 5PPM will inhibit the growth of the bacteria, so you should get it down to the 3 - 4 PPM range.

DO NOT ADD ANY MORE AMMONIA at this point. it will only increase your nitrites even more. it will probably be a couple weeks before they start going down on their own, based on my fishless cycle experience recently.
 
I did a 60% water change today, I think the nitrites are about 4pmm, my ammonia is 1pmm, so do I just leave things as they are at? If my nitrites should go high again is it okay to do another water change? So do I leave my ammonia at 1pmm , what happens if it keeps dropping do I not need to bring it back up to 4pmm to keep the bacteria alive, I don't want to screw up this time seeing I have come so far
 
Just keep the ammonia at 1ppm. It won't hurt anything and will keep the colony of bacteria strong.

You shouldn't need to do another water change unless your pH drops below 6.5
 
You all know now I am in the middle of my fishless cycle this is day 21 for me tested my nitrites today they were 5pmm I did a 50% water change about 12.30pm this afternoon tested again at 7.10pm they are still the same they never came down is this normal or do I have to do another water change , I did add prime to my water please help

just to be sure try this test your water that you are doing the water change with before adding it . My city tap water lead me a merry chase and I had the same problem as you described
 
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