Week 4 of cycling and no nitrites!

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awojno

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
4
Hey everyone, I am a first time fish tank owner and I believe i may be struggling with my fishless cycle. I am at week 4 now and I have seen hardly any nitrites appear. I am getting a reading of about .1ppm for my nitrites and about 1ppm for my ammonia which i dosed to about 5ppm at the beginning of the cycle. So my ammonia has fallen and my nitrites have hardly gone up at all. Also my water is pretty cloudy. My tank has been kept at a constant 82 degrees Fahrenheit and it is in a dark area to assure that no sun hits it and kills the new bacteria. Have I done something wrong here? Do I need to start over?

Thank you for your help! I absolutely love these forums!
 
Also, just a follow up. I am using an API test kit (which is great) and I have measured the nitrates for the purposes of getting as much help as possible. It seems like it is at about 5ppm-10ppm maybe on the lower range like 6ppm.
 
Your ammonia has fallen from 5 ppm to how much?
Have you been adding back the ammonia to get again the 5 ppm? Remember that you need to keep ammonia to avoid starvation to the good bacteria.

Let us know more to help you better...

Thanks
 
Nitrites in the tank can throw off the nitrate test. Sorry to dash your hopes.

5ppm of ammonia may have caused your cycle to stall. 4ppm seems to be walking the line between robustly cycling your tank and stalling the nitrogen cycle. What is your current ammonia level? As ejaramillo said, you need to keep dosing ammonia to feed the bacteria.

If your ammonia is still above 4ppm, do a PWC. I prefer to cycle my tanks in the 2-3ppm ammonia range and stock over a period of time rather than cycle with a lot of ammonia and add a tank's worth of fish at one go. There's less chance of a stall with the lower ammonia levels.

FYI, the sun will cause algae problems, not bacteria deaths. That's why it's good to cycle with little to no light if you have no fish or plants.
 
Nitrites in the tank can throw off the nitrate test. Sorry to dash your hopes.

5ppm of ammonia may have caused your cycle to stall. 4ppm seems to be walking the line between robustly cycling your tank and stalling the nitrogen cycle. What is your current ammonia level? As ejaramillo said, you need to keep dosing ammonia to feed the bacteria.

If your ammonia is still above 4ppm, do a PWC. I prefer to cycle my tanks in the 2-3ppm ammonia range and stock over a period of time rather than cycle with a lot of ammonia and add a tank's worth of fish at one go. There's less chance of a stall with the lower ammonia levels.

FYI, the sun will cause algae problems, not bacteria deaths. That's why it's good to cycle with little to no light if you have no fish or plants.

I have not added any more ammonia and my ammonia levels are currently at about 1ppm. Do I need to add ammonia now? and should I add it back up to 5 ppm or 2-3?
 
Yes, you can add back to rise the level again, IMO to 3 to 4 ppm. And keep reading, every time that the ammonia drops to 1 or less ppm, keep adding back.

This will keep the good bacteria growing, which will start to generate Nitrites, after you start to get Nitrites, more bacterias will start to convert it to Nitrates.

Keep going
 
+1 for ejaeamillo.

If you've never added ammonia to your tank then it will take forever to cycle your tank. I do have 1 question: how often are you checking the water during the cycle? Also, you say you dosed the tank to 5 ppm ammonia, did you NEVER see nitrites? The ammonia had to go somewhere. The bacteria that converts ammonia should have converted it to nitrites at some point in time. It sounds like the process may have been starved due to the lack of an ammonia source.
 
Aim for 3ppm. That way you have some wiggle room in case of an overdose. Try to maintain 3-4ppm until your tank can covert all the ammonia to nitrates in 24 hours or less. As long as you had some measurable ammonia level in the tank the entire time, I don't think you hurt the cycle.
 
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