7th day of a cycle...

[pairustwo]

So I put my first drops of Ammonia in my new tank 7 days ago and it is currently a toxic soup in there
March 8th 3:00 pm
NH3 3ppm
NO2 4ppm (not quite to the 5.0)
NO3 40ppm

I haven't been letting the ammonia get to low before I re-dose it. I've been adding ammonia every time it gets near 1ppm.

I feel like I'm getting close to the end but here's the thing.
This tank is at work and I have to leave Friday night until Monday morning.

If I'm getting close to converting 4ppm of ammonia in a 24 hour period should I Over Dose the tank to say 8ppm on Friday night? or will the bacteria survive the weekend if they run out of food on Saturday night?

Wadda you think?

Thanks
Pairustwo

 

[neilanh]

Too much ammonia can actually kill it off. Bacteria can sustain for around 48 hours, so I'd dose it to 3ppm tomorrow and then it'll be fine over the weekend. Just check it and redose monday morning when you get in.

 

[pairustwo]

Is this Possible?

March 9th 6:00 am (15 hours later)
NH3 0.5 ppm
NO2 2 ppm (or very close to two)
NO3 5 ppm (this is the weird one)

How could the NitrAte be falling, and falling so much?
I tested it twice this morning to be sure. Perhaps I made a mistake when testing it yesterday when it read 40 ppm - very clearly very red.

Or is there some way that NitrAtes could be dissapearing.
Maybe some elves did a water change last night !?!?

 

[neilanh]

haha, the PWC elves strike again!

No, the NO3 test is very quirky, and several factors can affect it, one of which I believe to be high NO2. Don't worry too much about NO3 until your NO2 gets down.

 

[rich311k]

Looks like your cycle is really rolling now. Your ammonia eating bacteria are almost fully established and your nitrite eaters are catching up. Should not be to long now.

The nitrate test is quirky at best, and it gets worse when nitrites are present.

 

[pairustwo]

Alright. I was afraid I was messing up somewhere.

Which was a drag because I'm feeling like I did a good job on cycling this thing.

My first tank took a month to cycle with fish (the LFS walked me through it before I found this site) and I didn't want to go through that again.

Thanks again you all.
pairustwo