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treym563

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
Messages
73
Location
Minnesota
Hey guys, I have been fishless cycling my 55gallon for over a month now. I run an emperor biowheel filter. I recieved one or the four filter pads off another cycled tank as well as a biowheel off a cycled tank. I have been able to dose ammonia to 4ppm+ and have it go to 0 after a short while, sometimes even under 12 hours. To me this seemed really good, and I figured my cycle was well on it's way. I saw nitrItes for a couple weeks now and over the last weekend my nitrItes started coming up as 0. After getting dosing ammonia and it going to 0 and getting 0 nitrItes for about 4 days straight I decided my tank was cycled, and ordered my fish. My fish are coming tomorrow and so I decided to do a large water change, around 90%, to bring my nitrAtes down and get my tank ready for my fish. I did the water change about 6 hours ago and now I'm getting high nitrItes again, what the heck?!?! I thought my tank was cycled, do I need to wait longer till I test for nitrItes? Did the large water change mess with my readings in some way? I have about 200 dollars worth of fish coming and I don't want to dump them into a tank with super high nitrItes and lose all of them...I don't know what to do! What are my options if my nitrItes don't go down by the morning? I have a 20 gallon tank that isn't cycled, could I just put them in there and do very large water changes multiple times a day until my big tank shows 0 nitrItes? I'm kinda freakin out here
 
treym563 said:
Hey guys, I have been fishless cycling my 55gallon for over a month now. I run an emperor biowheel filter. I recieved one or the four filter pads off another cycled tank as well as a biowheel off a cycled tank. I have been able to dose ammonia to 4ppm+ and have it go to 0 after a short while, sometimes even under 12 hours. To me this seemed really good, and I figured my cycle was well on it's way. I saw nitrItes for a couple weeks now and over the last weekend my nitrItes started coming up as 0. After getting dosing ammonia and it going to 0 and getting 0 nitrItes for about 4 days straight I decided my tank was cycled, and ordered my fish. My fish are coming tomorrow and so I decided to do a large water change, around 90%, to bring my nitrAtes down and get my tank ready for my fish. I did the water change about 6 hours ago and now I'm getting high nitrItes again, what the heck?!?! I thought my tank was cycled, do I need to wait longer till I test for nitrItes? Did the large water change mess with my readings in some way? I have about 200 dollars worth of fish coming and I don't want to dump them into a tank with super high nitrItes and lose all of them...I don't know what to do! What are my options if my nitrItes don't go down by the morning? I have a 20 gallon tank that isn't cycled, could I just put them in there and do very large water changes multiple times a day until my big tank shows 0 nitrItes? I'm kinda freakin out here

Did u add ammonia after ur big water change? If u did give it 24 hours if ammonia and nitrite dropped to 0 and end up with 20ppm nitrate then u are cycled!
 
I added a tiny bit of ammonia after I did the large WC just to keep the bacteria fed until the morning, I think that was a big mistake. I also made the mistake of adding TOO much dechlorinator, approximately twice as much as I should have (I read the directions wrong). Do you think what's happening is the ammonia I put in there after i did the large WC is just still being converted to nitrAte? The fish will be here in about 8 hours should I just do a huge water change and not add any ammonia?
 
treym563 said:
I added a tiny bit of ammonia after I did the large WC just to keep the bacteria fed until the morning, I think that was a big mistake. I also made the mistake of adding TOO much dechlorinator, approximately twice as much as I should have (I read the directions wrong). Do you think what's happening is the ammonia I put in there after i did the large WC is just still being converted to nitrAte? The fish will be here in about 8 hours should I just do a huge water change and not add any ammonia?

No just wait and see. And i don't think adding double dose of dechlorinated wouldn't harm ur bacteria. Wait and see if Ur nitrite goes down. If not u just have to do pwc daily.
 
The tank was seeded you added plenty of ammonia, if there is a nitrite mini cyle left it should not be long. As Hubert says test and a few water changes and you should be ok.
 
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