High Ammonia + High NitrAte

[Didge3]

Newbie here, probably get questions like this time and time again...

I'm a week into my fishless cycle, I've been doing 4ppm of ammonia once a day, I tested today and it seems to have gone through the roof for some reason!
Ammonia off the scale, I'd say its 8ppm? My nitrItes are low at 2.5ppm and nitrAtes are high at 75ppm.
I'm not sure whats my best course of action, a large water change perhaps?
I want to get my ammonia gone and those nitrAtes down but I don't know how the nitrIte level is so low compared to the ammonia??

 

[coralbandit]

I would test your source water..
With nitrate levels at what you have I would suspect they are in your source water..
No need to have ammonia over 4 ppm so IMO a waterchange [although unnecessary in fishless cycles] may help to speed things up IF the nitrAtes are not from your source water.

 

[Didge3]

I would test your source water..
With nitrate levels at what you have I would suspect they are in your source water..
No need to have ammonia over 4 ppm so IMO a waterchange [although unnecessary in fishless cycles] may help to speed things up IF the nitrAtes are not from your source water.

Thanks, I'd not thought of testing my source water. Its free of nitrItes but does have a small amount of nitrAtes in it, maybe 15ppm?
I'm going to do a water change and see how it affects things.

 

[842450]

Do u have a heater on? Try skipping ammonia dose for one day, see if the bacteria can catch up.

 

[Didge3]

Heater has been on but relatively low, about 23c, I've cranked it to 27c to see if it helps things along.
I've done a 50% water change, I won't add any ammonia and I'll see what the levels are tomorrow.

 

[Didge3]

Over 24hrs later and ammonia still off chart (haven't added any) looks about the same shade as yesterdays so I'm guessing about 8ppm. Temp is up at 28c, nitrItes even lower at maybe 1ppm, nitrAtes at about 40ppm so slightly better on that front.

Going to try another 50% water change and test my source for ammonia just in case...

 

[842450]

Just leave it and wait, mine took good three weeks for ammoniaa to drop. Dont know why, but for me, cleaning the canister filter and rinsing bio media (in tank water of course) kick started the whole process. Ammonia went to zero. And after three weeks of high nitrites the same rinsing sorted everything out. Dont do water changes, just be patient.

 

[Didge3]

Well I did a few more water changes which wasn't really yielding much but I've just left it for 2 days and ammonia is now on the chart at 5.5-6ppm. Nitrites are at 0 and Nitrates are down to 15-20ppm so I just need to wait for that ammonia to die off.

 

[Didge3]

I've been leaving the tank to its own devices and bingo! About 15ppm of nitrAtes, 0 nitrites and 0.5ppm of ammonia. I'm going to take a sample to my local aquarium tomorrow and check the results they get. If I can shift that last bit of ammo we should be golden