Is this normal?

[willikris]

As most of you know, I'm fishless cycling my 20 gal. My nitrites have been sky high for probably 2 weeks now. ( currently at the end of week 5). Last night I did a 95% water change...aka...tried to get as much water as I could out of the tank. I got my nitrites down to 1.0ppm and my nitrates down to 5ppm. That in itself is confusing to me since I basically took all the water out!! As of today, not even 24 hours later...I have a ridiculous nitrite and nitrate spike!! (See pics). Does that mean the bb are working overtime? Is my cycle stalling? Can't seem to keep my nitrites manageable. What is going on?? Any thoughts are appreciated!

Pics are with flash, one without.

 

[willikris]

Edit...nitrites have been sky high for 2 weeks. Sorry!!

 

[willikris]

Yeah you can so tell I'm new to AA. I found the edit button dso ignore post #2 LOL!!

 

[Fresh2o]

There's an Edit button? I did not know that. I only use the mobile app. Still trying to get used to the latest version.

Anyhow, what is the ammonia reading? Are you still dosing ammonia? If so, to what level (ppm) and how often?

 

[willikris]

I dose it daily to 2 ppm. It drops to zero in less than 24 hrs.

 

[Mebbid]

looks to me like things are going nicely. You should be finished very soon.

 

[willikris]

looks to me like things are going nicely. You should be finished very soon.

That would be a-am-zing!! I'm trying hard to be patient. Should I continue doing water changes or just let it go? I don't want it to stall.

 

[Mebbid]

If you really want to you can do a water change. I don't personally think it matters much.

 

[willikris]

If you really want to you can do a water change. I don't personally think it matters much.

Ok. It's a pain in the butt and would prefer NOT doing another huge water change. I think I might do 50% just to keep ph in check and make sure it doesn't stall...

 

[threnjen]

If you did a 95% water change last night, your pH is fine and you added back in any nutrients from the tap. Don't bother to do another one. Just let it finish, almost there.

 

[Fresh2o]

From what I observed and read, the population of bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate takes a while to get established compared to the ammonia consuming bacteria. 5 weeks is long but not unusual when starting from scratch. Having access to established media makes a big difference IMO.

The only thing I could suggest (again, just a suggestion) is to decrease the daily ammonia dose from 2 ppm to 1 ppm. There are plenty of nitrites in the water as your test kit has indicated. This should prevent the cycle "stall" from having too many nitrites. Once nitrite conversion has started, you can bump up the ammonia back up to 2 ppm.

 

[willikris]

From what I observed and read, the population of bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate takes a while to get established compared to the ammonia consuming bacteria. 5 weeks is long but not unusual when starting from scratch. Having access to established media makes a big difference IMO.

The only thing I could suggest (again, just a suggestion) is to decrease the daily ammonia dose from 2 ppm to 1 ppm. There are plenty of nitrites in the water as your test kit has indicated. This should prevent the cycle "stall" from having too many nitrites. Once nitrite conversion has started, you can bump up the ammonia back up to 2 ppm.

Sounds good! I had the same thought about lowering the ammonia as well.

 

[Fishperson]

I agree with Fresh2o, that you should drop the dose down to 1 ppm until the nitrosomonas bacteria (the ones that "eat" nitrite) catch up. They are there, because you had some nitrate. Once the nitrite-consuming bacteria can get nitrite at a constant zero, I would slowly up the daily dose to 2 ppm, so you can add more fish once you stock. What do you plan to stock with initially?

 

[willikris]

I'm just getting a black moor.

 

[Mebbid]

Just 1 black moor? If that's the case I would just do a couple 90% water changes to get ammonia / nitrites / nitrates down to 0 and just add the fish. There is plenty of bacteria in there now to handle the bio load of a single fish.

 

[willikris]

Haha yup! Just one fish!! I've had fish in the past and wanted to do it right this time around. I think I'll give it a bit more time cuz I think I'm so close to the end of the cycle. Feeling optimistic! Thanks for all the help everyone!