another cycle?

[inspire0522]

i did a full gravel change and a 30% water change... added some driftwood about two weeks ago.... well the amm is at 0 but the nitrites are at 2.0 and nitrates are 40+... did i start another cycle? should i wait it out or do a water change? this is making me sick! and my fish!! i was thinking of taking the drift wood out for now. i took off the other half of the cover.. so its 50% open help please thank you
140g
fish only

 

[Guest]

i think you may have started another mini cycle when you removed your gravel, because the gravel is what the bacteria grows on. you don't need to take the driftwood out, i don't think that's the root of the problem. It sounds like you may have had an ammonia spike and it already went down, and now you have a small nitrite spike. i would do daily water changes and test for nitrites every day until the level goes down. What kind of filter do you have? when i changed my gravel i left the sponge in the filter and didn't have any problems.

 

[Andos99]

I agree with Ashley....you are having another mini cycle caused by the gravel change. If this is true, you may just have to wait it out and not overkill the water changes....if you haven't lost any fish yet, I wouldn't be too worried because the worst of it is most likely already over.

 

[inspire0522]

... i guess i could wait it out. they are becoming a little more aggressive but other then that i dont see any changes... guess i will have to wait.. and test again shortly.
thanks again

 

[Guest]

What kind of filter are you using? I know with all the bio-media I use in my filter that I have enough bacteria to do a gravel change without a cycle, so you might want to address that issue. Get rid of all the carbon, peat moss, and junk like that and only use bio media.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Get rid of all the carbon, peat moss, and junk like that and only use bio media.

Don't remove anything from your filter at this point in time. There obviously isn't enough bacteria built up in the tank to withstand the change without going through another mini-cycle. Keep doing the 20% weekly water changes. Since we don't know what type of filter you have or the tank size, I can't give you a recommendation on what to use in the filter in place of carbon. Some filters are not able to accomidate ceramic rings. If you could give us the filter brand and model and the tank size, we could help put you in the right direction.

 

[inspire0522]

i am using 4 Penguin Bio-Wheel 200 filters, its a 140g tank.
thanks