Cycling in progress.... Did I screw it up???

[Retired_AF]

I am currently at day 20 of my fishless cycle.

At day 15 I started finding life in the tank. I found some stomatella snails, some tiny red feather dusters, an aiptasia (now deceased), a couple small white feathery things too small to take a pic of (possibly anemones, but they dont seem to move or retract when disturbed), and 2 small bristle worms (good ones, I checked).

Things have been progressing well but suddenly, 2 days ago, my nitrates skyrocketed from 0 to 40(Tuesday) to 160 yesterday. Today I did a 20% water change and retested everything.

I have been dosing ammonia daily to keep it at 2.0.

After the water change today I ran the tests and these are my results:
SG - 1.0245
Ammonia - 0.25
pH - 8.4
Nitrites - 2.0
Nitrates - 160, possibly more since the red was VERY dark. I retested after recleaning the test tube to make sure it was accurate.
Calcium - 460
dKH - 6

I am currently making more RO/DI so I can make salt water to do another PWC to get the Nitrates down, hopefully by Saturday.

I noticed that the Nitrate numbers jumped the day after I dosed the tank with Purple Up to stimulate the coraline spreading to my dry rock and adding macroalgae to the sump.

I know these readings normally fluctuate as the cycling process progresses, but the Nitrates numbers seem extreme. Did I mess up by using the Purple Up?
Should I continue dosing the ammonia? I have no livestock in the tank other than what is listed above so I am thinking yes, but I would like the Nitrites and especially Nitrates to drop some before I do.

Opinions??

 

[hultsmark]

My opinion is you are doing fine. Your water changes will help with the levels and you are close to being able to add starter organisms. I waited a month and then added some damsels to keep me busy and the system going.

 

[OscarFan76]

Sounds normal to me. I would back off on the ammo dosing for a couple of days and see if the nitrites go to 0. Sounds like your cycle is almost complete.

You will probably need a big water change to put a dent in the nitrates.

 

[Retired_AF]

Today I did a 25% water change. I let the tank circulate for almost 2 hours then ran the tests again. Todays results:
SG - 1.024
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 2.0
Nitrates - 40
pH - 8.2
Temp - 82

The nitrates came down A LOT although not enough to suit me, nitrites came down some but still too high.

I havent dosed any ammonia the past 2 days and am thinking I need to put SOME in there to keep the bacteria alive.

I havent dosed any Purple Up since the nitrites spiked. I have noticed that I have hair algae starting to grow. I cleaned off the glass but there is still some on the back, the overflow and the circulation pumps. Hopefully getting the nitrates down, decreasing lights and dropping temp some will help.

I turned off the metal halides until further needed. Now just the actinics and moon lights are working.

I turned off the heaters, hoping to cool the water down a bit.

I'm making RO/DI water again, thinking I am going to need to do another 25% water change, hopefully on Monday.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[Retired_AF]

I'm feeling very confused... I just completed my 3rd PWC in the past 4 days, total of 70 gallons changed in a 75 gallon water column...

Today I did another 20% water change.
Ammonia is still 0
Nitrites is still at 2.0
Nitrates is still at 40

This PWC did NOTHING to aleviate my NO2 and NO3 issue...
Do I still need to do more water changes or will these levels drop from here?

 

[Hondatek]

Don't worry about water changes unless you have a ph crash . Other than that I see nothing you should worry about unless of course you have fish

 

[Sniperhank]

If you are cycling there is no reason to do water changes unless you had livestock in the tank. You are costing yourself money and making the cycle take longer.

 

[OscarFan76]

That was my fault. I noticed nitrites dropping one one of my tanks when fishless cycling when my nitrates were through the roof. After a single pwc everything was in range and stayed that way. If you are continuing to see nitrite after your pwc then it is just a waiting game.

Unless I'm mistaken, the nitrates won't come down unless you have something that reduces them like a refrigum, etc. PWCs are the way to reduce nitrate after your cycle. You are better off doing one large one after the cycle instead of several small ones. Example if you are at 80ppm and do a 50% then you should be at 40ppm. If you do 25 & 25 then the first would get you to 60 but the 2nd would only take you to 45ppm.