About 5wks into fishless cycle, major nitrite stall

[fastguppy]

I'm doing a fishless cycle on my new 29gal planted with java fern, anubis, and other misc plants. I took chunks of filter from my mature 10gal, and at first it was pretty good. I added household plain ammonia, and within a couple of weeks my readings were :
Ammonia was 0
Nitrite was 0.5-1
Nitrate was up to about 20-40

Then I added more plants. Nitrate dropped to almost 0. Nitrite refuses to budge.
Then some plants died, I added more ammonia. It went back to zero, nitrate went back up to between 20-40, nitrite was around 1.
Now, here I am:
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0.5-1
Nitrate=20

What is going on here?


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[fastguppy]

Still about the same.

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[flitabout]

Try doing a 50% water change your water may need some buffers. Also have you tested your tap with off gassed water?

 

[fastguppy]

Interesting, I will try it. I never thought of the buffer thing, makes sense. What is off gassed water?

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[militantpotato]

Age tap water for 24 hours to get an accurate ph reading. I age water in brute trash cans for a day to avoid a swing in my tank.

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[ppo8820]

I feel you, my Nitrites were off the charts and didnt move for literally like 3 weeks. I was over it!!! Then randomly, two days ago they were almost to zero and that was out of the blue. I even had stopped testing. Today they are at 0, but I am skeptical since this tank is a wild card so far.

 

[Mebbid]

How often are you adding ammonia to the tank?

Take a read of this post. It's a walk through on fishless cycling. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

I feel you, my Nitrites were off the charts and didnt move for literally like 3 weeks. I was over it!!! Then randomly, two days ago they were almost to zero and that was out of the blue. I even had stopped testing. Today they are at 0, but I am skeptical since this tank is a wild card so far.

They suddenly dropped to zero because there was too much nitrite built up in the tank. It took a long time for the bacteria to catch up to the ammonia you were dosing in the tank as well as take care of the back log of nitrites that were built up over the entire fishless cycle.

 

[fastguppy]

Well, it happened! Nitrites dropped to zero ... Nitrates were on the low side but I think it was due to the plants. I didn't believe it so I added ammonia after pwc, and 24hrs later it was converted, with 0 nitrites. I checked partway through the cycle and there were detectable nitrites so I know it happened. Just to be doubly sure, I did another ammonia dose, and it was cycled out again after 24hrs. Today is moving day for my danios! Thank you so much for your help with this!

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