Why did nitrites increase?

[JoeyGeeze]

Hey guys... Quick background... I'm cycling a 10 gallon tank for the last month or so. I used some filter media from my larger tank, and ammonia (same ammonia that cycled my other two tanks). As of last Friday, my nitrites disappeared along with ammonia, I was cycled. Since i wasnt ready for fish yet, I kept the cycle going during the last week by dropping in ammonia every day, but missed the last two days. I tested the tank last night and all of a sudden, the nitrites are off the chart! Ammonia is still disappearing, i dosed last night and it was gone tonight, yet still high nitrites. Only thing I did with the tank between last Friday and today was add a sponge over the filter intake and a large stone. Any reason why my cycle would suddenly revert back to not being cycled? It's such a pain because I was planning on getting my fish tonight

 

[fort384]

Sounds to me as though you were able to maintain your colony of nitrosomona, but somehow killed off a good portion of the nitrobacter you had established in the tank. The good news is it shouldn't take much longer feeding the tank to get the population back up.

 

[JoeyGeeze]

Sounds to me as though you were able to maintain your colony of nitrosomona, but somehow killed off a good portion of the nitrobacter you had established in the tank. The good news is it shouldn't take much longer feeding the tank to get the population back up.

Erghh I was afraid of that! Idk how I did that though, weird. I did a large water change tonight in hopes to drop the nitrites and nitrAtes a bit, then added more ammonia.

 

[fort384]

Sounds like a good plan. At least you aren't starting from square 1

 

[JoeyGeeze]

Sounds like a good plan. At least you aren't starting from square 1

This is very true. Hopefully tomorrow it will be OK, I don't know how long it will take to cycle again.

 

[JoeyGeeze]

So I tested this morning and I'm in the clear! Nitrites are gone, ammonia is gone.. Time for my new fish!

 

[fort384]

Excellent!