This dosent make any sense

[Kyle0226]

Ok so my tank has been running for about a month with a full tank of fish. Before adding I used turbo start and quick start . My ammonia levels right now are at about a 2-3 and my nitrite levels are about a 6 and my nitrates are at a 15 so I have the nitrates in my tank but my nitrite isn't going down and I still have ammonia in my tank can someone explain that to me how are my nitrates so high but my tank not be cycled because if it was I would have no nitrites or ammonia so obviously I'm not but how
.. my tank is not dirty I have a cascade canister and I haven't really been doing water changes that much my last one was about a week ago of about 20% why isn't my nitrates eating the nitrites and why do I still have ammonia. I don't have the option to take my fish out so please tell me how much longer before my nitrite and ammonia read zero with my high of nitrates

 

[Aiken Drum]

You arent cycled.

You have some beneficial bacteria, but not enough to process out all the ammonia and subsequent nitrite that your system produces. You havent been doing enough water changes to control your water parameters while your cycle establishes and they are now at very harmful levels.

You should be doing water changes to keep ammonia + nitrite combined at no higher than 0.5ppm combined. You are way above that. If your fish arent suffering now, they soon will be.

I would do 50% water changes a few hours apart until you are at the 0.5ppm combined target. Then you need to do enough water changes to keep them there until your cycle establishes and can keep them at 0ppm on its own.

Feed lightly while cycling. As much as is eaten in 1 minute daily or 2 minutes every other day. Dont add any more bioload to the tank until you are cycled for your current fish.

Cycling a tank can take months. You have a lot of hard work to keep your water safe while your cycle establishes.

 

[Kyle0226]

I have a 60 gallon that would be soon much water doing a 50% water change every few hrs could I do a water change every other day

 

[Aiken Drum]

The toxicity of the water will be way more harmful than the high frequency of water changes. You really need to get that ammonia and nitrite down to less harmful levels and the only way to go from where you are to where you need to be is big, regular water changes. If you dont want to do more than one per day at least do 50% daily, but you will only be prolonging the time they are living in toxic conditions.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Consider this. Your nitrite is 6ppm. To get that alone to a safe level requires 5 × 50% water changes. Thats assuming it doesn't go up between water changes (which it will because you arent cycled). Doing 50% every 2 days will take 10 days to get that to a safe level, during which your fish will be getting less healthy by the day.

 

[WildFish99]

Get that ammonia level below .5 immediately! Using some prime water conditioner in the mean time while you do your water changes should help lower the toxicity of that ammonia and nitrite. Some of those quick starts just add nitrates to the tank and don’t actually help with cycling. There are quite a few posts with more info on that.