What am I doing wrong?

[akkitten]

I am cycling two tanks(10g and 1.5g) with fish (no lectures please, I am a noob and also stated a cycling on a 20gal fishless. The parameters on the tanks cycling with fish are PH 7.6, Amm 0, Nitrate 20, and Nitrite ~2.0 (having a hard time telling the purples apart). I am doing a 50% PWC on the 1.5g daily and a 30% PWC on the 10gal every other day, but the nitrites refuse to budge. Is there anything I can do to help the process along?

P.S.
The 20g fishless after 4 days is Amm. 3.0 and Nitrites .5.

 

[mfdrookie516]

To address the question in the title....I think you answered part of it in the first sentence.

Keep up on the water changes though. Do them as often as necessary. If you have to, do one before you go to work in the morning, one when you get home, and one before you go to bed... Do at least 50%, more if you need to. At this point, you have two options. Option 1 is to keep doing water changes, but it sounds like you need to do more. Option 2 is to return the fish, do a fishless cycle, then buy more fish when you're cycled.

 

[akkitten]

Thank you! 3 pwc on the 10gal and nitrite is at zero! 4 pwc on the 1.5 and still trace nitrite. Will continue those until it is gone, didn't know you could do a pwc that often!

 

[Fishies86]

Thank you! 3 pwc on the 10gal and nitrite is at zero! 4 pwc on the 1.5 and still trace nitrite. Will continue those until it is gone, didn't know you could do a pwc that often!

I had to change my 48litre tank a LOT to get my nitrite down. At the worst it got, I changed 50%, 3times in a row, then had to do the same again later in the day.

It probably does stress the fish, but not as much as the nitrite does. Mine seemed to enjoy the water changes they would all try to swim into the jug I was using to take water out, and they'd all swim under the flow when I was pouring water back in.

 

[akkitten]

Mine do the same thing! I was really anxious to add some more fish, but under the advise of someone on here I will continue to test for a week to make sure my 0 nitrite reading is real. I haven't seen any ammonia in that tank for almost 2 weeks.