Anything wrong with my fishless cycle?

[ren_hao]

Today is day 9 of my fishless cycle.

I had started with fish food for a few days but the increase in Ammonia is minimal.
So, I went to get Ammonium Bicarbonate (smelly powder) and brought the level up to 4ppm.

Ammonia drop for 1 day from 4ppm to 2ppm. I dosed it up to 4ppm.
The funny thing is that this morning when i woke up, I saw that I got increased reading on Nitrite and Nitrate at the same time.
Not very "standard" leh. I thought Ammonia and Nitrite will go both to 0 before I see Nitrate?
Any gurus can help?

My current readings are:

pH: 7.5
Ammonia: 4
Nitrite: 2
Nitrate: 0.75

Test Kit used:
Ammonia: API Ammonia (NJ3/NH4+)
Nitrite: API (NO2)
Nitrate RedSea

 

[BTM88]

The bump in nitrate is a good think, it means you are building up nitrite -> nitrate bacteria. You will see nitrate levels even when you have ammonia and nitrite levels because your bacteria colony is not large enough yet to handle the full conversion of 4ppm ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate in less than 24 hrs. One morning you will wake up and have 0 ammonia & nitrite with only nitrate levels left. Now you just have to play the waiting game for that PITB day to come.

 

[ren_hao]

Fantastic. I hope that morning will come very soon

 

[Caliban07]

I would be careful dosing 4ppm at the start if a cycle. Many times on this forum people have problems when they reach the nitrites conversion stage which consists of a lot of water changes just to get nitrites to a readable level. I strongly recommend dosing 0.5ppm ammonia. Then waiting to zero and waiting for nitrites to start coming down. Then add 1ppm ammonia and do the same again then 1.5ppm and get to 4ppm in increments if 0.5. This way the bacteria can colonise slowly and you want have and 'stalls'

 

[Caliban07]

Won't have any stalls **

 

[ren_hao]

Caliban, make sense too. Maybe i will stop dosing till the number drops to 0.5