Nitrite Readings using API Masterkit

[iforged]

Sooo, I was wondering,
I was able to borrow my buddies sponge from his 55gal, full of good bacteria for my fishless cycling tank, put it in about 2 days ago, and been dosing ammonia up to 2-4ppm, and within the 8 hrs it goes to 0ppm...

FOR Nitrites, When i get the water in the tube, i put 5 drops from the Nitrite Bottle, the water turns really purple (5.0ppm+ ) in matter of few seconds... when it sits for around 1-3 minutes it turns Blue.... the directions say "let it sit for 5 minutes and then see the readings..." well.. if i was to do that, the tube is baby blue.. BUT when u dose it before letting it sit, it turns dark purple in matter of seconds... I cant figure out if my Nitrite is 0.. or are they OFF THE CHARTS 22ppm or something like that.. I did 60% water change the other day, just to see if i can get the nitrite to "reading range", but same thing, dosed the tube with 5 drops, turned purple right away, and then within minute or two turned blue... Can anyone help me to read this correctly?

My Nitrate readings are around 80-100 i would say, dark orange/radish color.

Thanks guys.

 

[BTM88]

If is turning straight to dark purple then to blue it is off the charts high. I had the same problem when I cycled, did a few very large water changes to get the levels to a readable level.

 

[Ian086]

Sooo, I was wondering,
I was able to borrow my buddies sponge from his 55gal, full of good bacteria for my fishless cycling tank, put it in about 2 days ago, and been dosing ammonia up to 2-4ppm, and within the 8 hrs it goes to 0ppm...

FOR Nitrites, When i get the water in the tube, i put 5 drops from the Nitrite Bottle, the water turns really purple (5.0ppm+ ) in matter of few seconds... when it sits for around 1-3 minutes it turns Blue.... the directions say "let it sit for 5 minutes and then see the readings..." well.. if i was to do that, the tube is baby blue.. BUT when u dose it before letting it sit, it turns dark purple in matter of seconds... I cant figure out if my Nitrite is 0.. or are they OFF THE CHARTS 22ppm or something like that.. I did 60% water change the other day, just to see if i can get the nitrite to "reading range", but same thing, dosed the tube with 5 drops, turned purple right away, and then within minute or two turned blue... Can anyone help me to read this correctly?

My Nitrate readings are around 80-100 i would say, dark orange/radish color.

Thanks guys.

Hi iforged, just very slightly off topic but what type of filter do you have??. I assume it(sponge) fits into your filter. Just curious, because you can instantly cycle a tank with an established sponge....
I say this with the best intentions, follow the instructions to the letter. If your test is coming up baby blue after 5 mins, then you have no Nitrites....

 

[iforged]

Yeah turns purple and then blue or light greenish few min later... I thought it was off the charts high too... As far as sponge goes... I have a Fluval 306 3 stage canister.. I stuck his sponge in one of my trays...

Should I do a water change to get the readings?? Is it advices or should I just wait? For nitrates to kick in when they do?

 

[Ian086]

Yeah turns purple and then blue or light greenish few min later... I thought it was off the charts high too... As far as sponge goes... I have a Fluval 306 3 stage canister.. I stuck his sponge in one of my trays...

Should I do a water change to get the readings?? Is it advices or should I just wait? For nitrates to kick in when they do?

The sponge in the filter should be touching one of your sponges to transfer media. With an established(your mates) sponge, your tank will be cycled already. Stock the tank very slowly and you will be fine. The cycle process is to grow good BB, you now have that with the borrowed sponge. It's just a case of multiplying the BB to cover the load of the tank. This just takes time, hence stocking slowly. I have instantly cycled numerous tanks this way....
Stock slowly, leave the borrowed sponge in the for a few weeks 2-4wks, keep testing the water, weekly PWC's and you will be fine.....

 

[iforged]

The sponge in the filter should be touching one of your sponges to transfer media. With an established(your mates) sponge, your tank will be cycled already. Stock the tank very slowly and you will be fine. The cycle process is to grow good BB, you now have that with the borrowed sponge. It's just a case of multiplying the BB to cover the load of the tank. This just takes time, hence stocking slowly. I have instantly cycled numerous tanks this way....
Stock slowly, leave the borrowed sponge in the for a few weeks 2-4wks, keep testing the water, weekly PWC's and you will be fine.....

I was trying to see if I can get his sponge to touch my sponge or the ceramic rings but I way because his sponge is fairly large. So what I did was put his sponge at the very bottom tray and then my sponge above it and then rings in the upper tray thinking the water flow would pass through my buddies sponge and carry BB to my sponge and the ceramics. Will that not work??

Also are u saying to stop dosing the tank with ammonia but to do a water change to get nitrite to .5 and ammonia 0 and stock it with fish? What would happen if I just keep dosing with pure ammonia and let the nitrate be able to convert tons of nitrites to nitrates??

Thanks for the tips keep them coming.

 

[Rivercats]

I was trying to see if I can get his sponge to touch my sponge or the ceramic rings but I way because his sponge is fairly large. So what I did was put his sponge at the very bottom tray and then my sponge above it and then rings in the upper tray thinking the water flow would pass through my buddies sponge and carry BB to my sponge and the ceramics. Will that not work??

Also are u saying to stop dosing the tank with ammonia but to do a water change to get nitrite to .5 and ammonia 0 and stock it with fish? What would happen if I just keep dosing with pure ammonia and let the nitrate be able to convert tons of nitrites to nitrates??

Thanks for the tips keep them coming.

That is fine where you put the seeded sponge.

If you don't do a WC or 2 to get nitrites down and you keep dosing ammonia you could actually cause you cycle to stall. Also watch you ph as it can often drop during your cycling and if your ph falls below 6.5 biological activity slows and if it drops to 6 or lower biological activity stops and BB starts to die off.

 

[Ian086]

That is fine where you put the seeded sponge.

If you don't do a WC or 2 to get nitrites down and you keep dosing ammonia you could actually cause you cycle to stall. Also watch you ph as it can often drop during your cycling and if your ph falls below 6.5 biological activity slows and if it drops to 6 or lower biological activity stops and BB starts to die off.

You have your answer there!!. Check out the articles section. Great articles on cycling. They go into more detail and will help you understand the whole process better, then come back her with any more questions...
Ask your mate if you can keep the sponge and just get him a replacement. He obviously doesn't need it!!!

 

[iforged]

You have your answer there!!. Check out the articles section. Great articles on cycling. They go into more detail and will help you understand the whole process better, then come back her with any more questions...
Ask your mate if you can keep the sponge and just get him a replacement. He obviously doesn't need it!!!

Okay did lots of digging around and read prolly all of the articles i could read, BUT .. here's the thing, so I performed a 80% water change last night, got my Nitrite down to approx 5-6ppm, and decided to leave it over night to see if it would convert to Nitrate (without dosing any more ammonia) and remember, I have my buddies pretty large sponge inside my filter that came from his 55gal tank, and this morning I woke up, did a water testing, and my Nitrite was still around 2-3ppm and nitrates around 20-30ppm.

Soooo, If my tank supposed to be instantly cycled with my buddies sponge, how come Nitrites didnt get converted to Nitrates over night?

Please let me know if I should just keep dosing ammonia till i can get good amount of nitrites to convert to nitrates no problem, or what am i missing here with this "instant tank cycle" method.

thanks

 

[PerfectDepth]

Soooo, If my tank supposed to be instantly cycled with my buddies sponge, how come Nitrites didnt get converted to Nitrates over night?

Please let me know if I should just keep dosing ammonia till i can get good amount of nitrites to convert to nitrates no problem, or what am i missing here with this "instant tank cycle" method.

thanks

There are a few different possible explanations. Whatever the reason, basically the colony of bacteria isn't quite large enough yet to handle the load. It sounds like you're on your way to a fully cycled tank, just hang in there!

And yes, definitely resume daily dosing of ammonia as soon as possible now that your nitrites are down to a readable level (you should have dosed ammonia last night after the water change, just enough to get it over 1 ppm). Fishless cycling takes some patience, but the upside is that you will be able to add your full stock of fish all at once!

EDIT: Usually "instant cycling" refers to adding seeded media, along with a small portion of your fish at first, waiting a week or two and adding a few more to slowly build up the bacteria colonies. It isn't exactly "instant" if you decide to go fishless since you are waiting for the colonies to multiply enough to handle a full bio-load, and then adding all fish at once. I hope this helps.

 

[Rivercats]

When you add seeded media if it doesn't have enough BB for the level of ammonia in your tank there is no "instant cycle" (which I don't like that term).

So you added seeded media but your dosing more ammonia than the beneficial bacteria on the seeded sponge can convert so now your BB is increasing, hence your still cycling. The seeded sponge is just helping to quicken the cycle. Make sense?

 

[iforged]

Okay that's for that info, and I was debating wether I should or should not add ammonia but then I wanted to see how much of that nitrite gets converted to nitrate. Now.. With what u said... I dosed the tank with some ammonia this morning, let say I come home and it got converted to nitrite and now my nitrite is at sky high levels again... Should I do a water change to bring them down to a readable levels and dose the tank with lol of ammonia again? (Which will result in nitrites go up again) ... I see my nitrites are slowly building up but maybe the sky high nitrites stall the growth a bit? If so what would be the best way to keep the levels down a bit to let nitrate grow a bit? ( I currently dose ammonia to 2-3ppm max) ...

 

[Rivercats]

You need to stop redosing ammonia until the level drops down to 1ppm or less. You don't want nitrites off the charts so when you do a WC to lower them don't re-add ammonia unless the level is below 1ppm and then try only carefully redosing up to 2ppm or even wait 24 hours before redosing ammonia so the nitrites in the water have some time to work on converting. You just don't want nitrites so high that there is so many you'll never see nitrates as they will just stall the cycle. The nitrite phase of cycling is actually the longest. But you should be seeing some nitrates.

 

[flitabout]

I think this is your issue. While you are using a seeded sponge the amount of bb in the sponge isn't enough yet to handle the amount of ammonia you are dosing. The size of the sponge and the size of his tank has little to do with how much bb is on it but rather the stocking your friend has in his tank.
Let me put it a bit differently if your friend has 5 neon tetras in a tank and the tank is fully cycled. You the use his filter sponge in your filter to cycle your tank but you have 5 goldfish. The bb colony will not be big enough to handle the waste from the bigger messier fish. So while having that sponge gives you a great kick start it will still take sometime for the filter to catch up with amount of ammo you are dosing.
Just keep doing what Rivercats said and watch your ph so it doesn't drop to much and do water changes as necessary to keep your nitrites at a readable level.
I also wanted to add that I use the same test kit and I have never had the vial turn purple then turn blue. I have had the blue develope to purple. I would have to agree if it is doing that then it is most likely so high it is unreadable.

 

[Caliban07]

Drip feeding ammonia is always the best way to start a fishless cycle. Try to mimic the ammonia output of a few small fish. Even use a pipette if you have to. Small doses throughout the day. I would keep doing this but gradually and that is the key word, gradually increase doses as if you are adding more fish. I wouldn't even bother testing my water for at least a couple if weeks. I would build up to a 4ppm dose over say 3 weeks then test params.

What a few people have said already is that the amount of bb in the filter can't handle a 4ppm dose of ammo in one go. The bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrite is mega efficient at its job and reproduces slightly quicker than the bacteria that converts nitrites to nitrates and this stage is almost always the stage that people encounter problems.

Bottom line is you are almost there. And it has taken much less time than it would have done without seeded media from your friend. Be patient and good luck.

 

[iforged]

Thank you all for all of the info and tips! It totally makes sense so I all do just that. I will do another WC to get nitrites to 2-4ppm and add just a tiny bit of ammo to give time for nitrites to convert to nitrates. Once again thank you for all of the info it has been very helpful. My friends tank is stocked with all sorts of fish (no goldfish) ... Around 10-12 fish abut 3-6 inches long.