Fish less cycle advice

[fishguy04]

I'm doing a fish less cycle and its been about two weeks. Im using an API test kit and my readings as of this morning are: ammonia - 0 nitrites - off the chart nitrates - 20 pH - 8. The reading have been like this for the past few days and I just wanted to know if there's anything I should be doing or should I wait for the nitrites to drop?

 

[Fishanatic]

Nope, if you have 20nitrates, you're cycle is over Also, pH: 8 Is a bit high :$

 

[fishguy04]

Nope, if you have 20nitrates, you're cycle is over Also, pH: 8 Is a bit high :$

So should I do a big water changer to bring my nitrites down.

 

[stevedocs]

Don't listen to fishanatic your cycle is not over, I'm at the same stage as you, no ammonia huge nitrite spike, and nitrates. I would do a big water change to bring nitrites to a readable amount, then dose a small amount of ammonia to say 2ppm and wait, it shouldn't be long

 

[Fishanatic]

Don't listen to fishanatic your cycle is not over, I'm at the same stage as you, no ammonia huge nitrite spike, and nitrates. I would do a big water change to bring nitrites to a readable amount, then dose a small amount of ammonia to say 2ppm and wait, it shouldn't be long

Sorry, i miss understood the off the charts. I thought he ment no nitrites O_O

 

[stevedocs]

I thought you may have miss read,


Shouldn't be to much longer on the cycle though, but bring your trites down by pwc and dose a small amount of ammonia.

What are you planning on keeping? As fish said some may think ph 8 could be a little high for rams for example

 

[fishguy04]

Don't listen to fishanatic your cycle is not over, I'm at the same stage as you, no ammonia huge nitrite spike, and nitrates. I would do a big water change to bring nitrites to a readable amount, then dose a small amount of ammonia to say 2ppm and wait, it shouldn't be long

Thanks for the help, I'm going to do a big water change to get the nitrites down. The only thing I can't do is dose the ammonia as I haven't been using pure ammonia in the cycle. I read on another post to put a raw shrimp and flake food to get the ammonia cycle going. I also have some filter media from my other tank in my filter. Do you think it would be a good idea to get my nitrites down and add my 5 cardinal tetras from my other tank?

 

[Fishanatic]

Thanks for the help, I'm going to do a big water change to get the nitrites down. The only thing I can't do is dose the ammonia as I haven't been using pure ammonia in the cycle. I read on another post to put a raw shrimp and flake food to get the ammonia cycle going. I also have some filter media from my other tank in my filter. Do you think it would be a good idea to get my nitrites down and add my 5 cardinal tetras from my other tank?

I wouldn't add fish until the cycle is over. You're basically almost done

 

[stevedocs]

I agree I wouldn't add any fish till your trites are gone, can you get ammonia? Maybe just add some fish food after your water change for the ammonia source and test again in a few day? If you have cycled filter media from another tank and haven't added it yet add it. You just need to be patient

 

[Rare]

Looks like we are all in the same boat here waiting for the nitrite to go down... I think this morning the nitrite in the test to me looked a little lite in color. Still a high 5.0+

 

[fishguy04]

I wouldn't add fish until the cycle is over. You're basically almost done

I'm glad I'm almost done, I'm getting tired of looking at a fish less tank

 

[fishguy04]

I agree I wouldn't add any fish till your trites are gone, can you get ammonia? Maybe just add some fish food after your water change for the ammonia source and test again in a few day? If you have cycled filter media from another tank and haven't added it yet add it. You just need to be patient

I can't find ammonia without any additives so I've been using flake food and raw shrimp. So I'm going to add some food and another shrimp and see if I can get the ammonia level to rise. I put the filter media from my other tank in from day one to help speed up the process a bit

 

[fishguy04]

So I added flake food and a raw shrimp yesterday, after my water change, I tested ammonia: 0 and nitrites: 0. It's been about 24hrs and I've tested ammonia: 0 and nitrites: 1-2. Would their be a reason why my nitrites are going up without my ammonia changing? Also what I didn't mention before, and I'm sorry, is I have two live plants in the tank and want to know if this would affect anything. They were put in on Saturday

 

[librarygirl]

It's hard to tell with the shrimp method as it isn't as accurate as dosing ammonia. So when you first added the shrimp were you able to get ammonia to rise and then it fell on its own?

It's likely you're in the middle of the cycle. You have enough ammonia eating bacteria but still need to grow more nitrite-eating bacteria, hence the nitrite spike. The nitrite phase is the longest, typically lasting about 3 weeks. I wouldn't worry about it yet.

LIve plants shouldn't have harmed the cycle.