gimmethatfish
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hi all -
I know there are one trillion threads out there about cycling with fish. I have spent hours reading them, but I still have a little confusion. (And to be honest, several of the threads have spun off into an ethical debate about the humanity of cycling with fish, so I give up reading pretty early in the thread.)
I don't want to be redundant, so here is a link to my introduction post with the specifics of my tank and other details: http://http://www.aquariumadvice.co...een-lurking-for-a-while-questions-296619.html
I *should* be nearing the end of my (fish in) cycle, kind of maybe hopefully? Over the past week, I have seen declining numbers of nitrites, but my ammonia levels haven't decreased. The last 4-5 days, I have gotten about .25 ppm of ammonia, 0 nitrite, barely detectable nitrate on each test - testing morning and evening. My ph and temperature have remained constant.
As you can read in my thread, my tank did recently get knocked over, but not even all the water spilled out. The filter and gravel remained wet, and I had it filled back up with dechlorinated water within a few minutes. I also noticed the 0 nitrate/nitrite but positive ammonia trend before this happened, so I'm not sure that was a factor. My tap water is medium hard, so the bacteria should be getting carbonates to consume.
I've still been doing a 2-3 gallon water change every evening and any morning where the ammonia looked anything like going over .25. Ammonia hasn't gotten much above .25 as long as I keep up the schedule. I have not tried skipping the evening water change to see what happens by morning for fear that the animals will be harmed overnight. I'm wondering why I'm still having constant ammonia. It would seem as if the bacterial colonies are established well enough to keep the ammonia relatively low and the nitrite has disappeared. I'm not overfeeding. There aren't any rotten plants. My tap water has maybe barely a detectable amount of ammonia in it naturally, but it's really barely off pure yellow.
I know there are one trillion threads out there about cycling with fish. I have spent hours reading them, but I still have a little confusion. (And to be honest, several of the threads have spun off into an ethical debate about the humanity of cycling with fish, so I give up reading pretty early in the thread.)
I don't want to be redundant, so here is a link to my introduction post with the specifics of my tank and other details: http://http://www.aquariumadvice.co...een-lurking-for-a-while-questions-296619.html
I *should* be nearing the end of my (fish in) cycle, kind of maybe hopefully? Over the past week, I have seen declining numbers of nitrites, but my ammonia levels haven't decreased. The last 4-5 days, I have gotten about .25 ppm of ammonia, 0 nitrite, barely detectable nitrate on each test - testing morning and evening. My ph and temperature have remained constant.
As you can read in my thread, my tank did recently get knocked over, but not even all the water spilled out. The filter and gravel remained wet, and I had it filled back up with dechlorinated water within a few minutes. I also noticed the 0 nitrate/nitrite but positive ammonia trend before this happened, so I'm not sure that was a factor. My tap water is medium hard, so the bacteria should be getting carbonates to consume.
I've still been doing a 2-3 gallon water change every evening and any morning where the ammonia looked anything like going over .25. Ammonia hasn't gotten much above .25 as long as I keep up the schedule. I have not tried skipping the evening water change to see what happens by morning for fear that the animals will be harmed overnight. I'm wondering why I'm still having constant ammonia. It would seem as if the bacterial colonies are established well enough to keep the ammonia relatively low and the nitrite has disappeared. I'm not overfeeding. There aren't any rotten plants. My tap water has maybe barely a detectable amount of ammonia in it naturally, but it's really barely off pure yellow.