Mini cycles suck!!!!!

[flitabout]

Yes I am a dumb-dumb! I added too many fish all at once. I did it. When I hit my lights a few days ago (feeling like a year now) I noticed my water looked cloudy. I remembered seeing a post about cloudy water coming from an ammonia spike so I decided to do some testing. My nitrites were 2ppm. I had been so sick and dealing with sick kids that I decided to dump prime in and wait till I had enough energy to get to the store to get water. I hiked 25g of water in and did a 50% water change (my tap water sucks). At that point I dosed like rivercats told me to with a small amount of salt and a heavy dose of prime and that got it down to 1 ppm. Next day I had a good tap test and I did another run to the store and did a 50% water change with 50/50 tap and RO. Now my tests are still coming up with ammo .25ppm and nitrite .5ppm so it is really dropping. But I am getting really sick running to the grocery store every morning when I get the kids to school to buy huge amounts of RO water. I got so sick of it I went and did another 25g this morning and it's mixed with a bit of tap and did a 75% change. Just maybe I can get a day off from buying water.

How long is this going to last? I will keep doing it if I have to but I just really, really want a break! Mini cycles suck!

 

[Delapool]

Yes I am a dumb-dumb! I added too many fish all at once. I did it. When I hit my lights a few days ago (feeling like a year now) I noticed my water looked cloudy. I remembered seeing a post about cloudy water coming from an ammonia spike so I decided to do some testing. My nitrites were 2ppm. I had been so sick and dealing with sick kids that I decided to dump prime in and wait till I had enough energy to get to the store to get water. I hiked 25g of water in and did a 50% water change (my tap water sucks). At that point I dosed like rivercats told me to with a small amount of salt and a heavy dose of prime and that got it down to 1 ppm. Next day I had a good tap test and I did another run to the store and did a 50% water change with 50/50 tap and RO. Now my tests are still coming up with ammo .25ppm and nitrite .5ppm so it is really dropping. But I am getting really sick running to the grocery store every morning when I get the kids to school to buy huge amounts of RO water. I got so sick of it I went and did another 25g this morning and it's mixed with a bit of tap and did a 75% change. Just maybe I can get a day off from buying water.

How long is this going to last? I will keep doing it if I have to but I just really, really want a break! Mini cycles suck!

Tough going! I had one take a week but you could try the bacteria in a bottle. I've found it seems to speed the cycle up (although always difficult to tell).

 

[Rivercats]

On the day's you can't do a WC add a double or triple dose of Prime to make it less toxic.

 

[flitabout]

We seem to be towards the end of it. I checked my levels this morning and I had 0 ammo and nitrate was just showing a trace. You know kind of just not as bright a blue as it should be so I think we are coming to the end off it. The good thing is because I didn't just let it go non of my fish even seemed the slightest stressed. Well the angels looked a bit PO'ed yesterday when I took the water down so far that they barely stayed up right. But as soon as the water was back in there they where right back to begging for food every time I got near the tank! I am still going to watch it like a hawk. But I am finally feeling more confident and I will chalk it up to a lesson learned that I will not repeat!