Fishless cycle two tanks same time different results

[Moshi78]

Greetings.. Newbie here to the forum. Ive had tanks before stopped with the hobby and then started again. Recently I bought a 75g and a 10g as a q tank. The 75 I dosed with maybe 3 ppm ammonia. That was almost four weeks ago. At about day 12 I read nitrites at about .5 - 1. The next day they were gone, but there were no nitrates. That was about two weeks ago. I still have no nitrites or nrates. Ammonia did dip a little but not much. Any idea what happened? They obviously appeared, but literally next day vanished? Question 2, the 10g I dosed with 1 ppm ammonia and figured I would experiment for kicks with tetra safe start. After almost two weeks ammonia is dipping a bit but no nitrites; however I am showing nitrates are starting. Tested my tap to make sure. Is that normal with t.s.s. I only tried tss in the 10g to experiment..thanks in advance. Sorry so long of a post.

[Jobin13]

Originally Posted by Moshi78

Greetings.. Newbie here to the forum. Ive had tanks before stopped with the hobby and then started again. Recently I bought a 75g and a 10g as a q tank. The 75 I dosed with maybe 3 ppm ammonia. That was almost four weeks ago. At about day 12 I read nitrites at about .5 - 1. The next day they were gone, but there were no nitrates. That was about two weeks ago. I still have no nitrites or nrates. Ammonia did dip a little but not much. Any idea what happened? They obviously appeared, but literally next day vanished? Question 2, the 10g I dosed with 1 ppm ammonia and figured I would experiment for kicks with tetra safe start. After almost two weeks ammonia is dipping a bit but no nitrites; however I am showing nitrates are starting. Tested my tap to make sure. Is that normal with t.s.s. I only tried tss in the 10g to experiment..thanks in advance. Sorry so long of a post.

Thats interesting to have nitrites appear and then vanish. Could it have possibly been contaminated? if using API freshwater master test kit you're supposed to wait 5 mins for nitrite nitrate and ammonia... hopefully you're doing that.

Second thing. whats the water temp in both tanks? my fishless cycle worked best at 82 degrees with 1ppm of ammonia. I used microbe lift special blend and the Nite out II and had a fully cycled 40 gal in a week... I'm pretty sure T.S.S. is for a fish-in cycle not a fishless cycle but I could be wrong, that was my understanding of it. 3ppm of ammonia might be a little too high to start of the cycle, try doing a water change and get it down to .5-1 ppm of ammonia and add the T.S.S. and maintain that level of ammonia for about a week. once it drops to 0ppm in a 24 hr period you're ready for fish

[Moshi78]

Thanks for the reply. Tank temperatures are 82 degrees. It is pure ammonia. Did nothing to it so not contaminated. The 10 gallon was only 1ppm and dropped to .5 showed no nitrites but am showing some nitrates. The 75 is probably closer to,2 ppm. Just weird stuff on both tanks. I will say the nitrite test is a different shade of blue kind of slightly darker then the blue on the sheet. Also darker in comparison to the blue results from the other tank, so not sure if that means anything.