quick cycle question...

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Ah that's sweet! Dude guess what! My nitrite reading is .25ppm!!! ;-) I'm just getting home from watching battle field LA. It was good I give it a 7.5 / 10! Action from beginning to end! But tomorrow when my nitrite reading hits 0ppm should I do a water then add fish right away? Or should I wait some time? If so how long? I just added some more ammonia to keep the BB eating for the night...

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Sergiotorr said:
Ah that's sweet! Dude guess what! My nitrite reading is .25ppm!!! ;-) I'm just getting home from watching battle field LA. It was good I give it a 7.5 / 10! Action from beginning to end! But tomorrow when my nitrite reading hits 0ppm should I do a water then add fish right away? Or should I wait some time? If so how long? I just added some more ammonia to keep the BB eating for the night...

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Definitely do the water change and wait a couple of hours. Then recheck. If everything is OK then you can add your fish. Sometimes the nitrates will be so high that you will need to perform a second pwc.
 
Deckape said:
Great job. How long did this take approximately?
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It took me 2 weeks to get to the point I'm at now. Before that i had 6 fish in the tank for 4 weeks and was doing PWC daily to try and get it cycled....my advice is just be patient and go with a fish less cycle!

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OhNeil1969 said:
Definitely do the water change and wait a couple of hours. Then recheck. If everything is OK then you can add your fish. Sometimes the nitrates will be so high that you will need to perform a second pwc.
Click to expand...

Ah ok that works for me! So basically once I do my water change retest the water and make sure the nitrates are down. Will the live BB be alright through this?

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Sergiotorr said:
Ah ok that works for me! So basically once I do my water change retest the water and make sure the nitrates are down. Will the live BB be alright through this?

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The water change itself won't harm the bacteria. They would only suffer if you left them without a food source for an extended period of time.

They should be alright for a day or so (maybe even longer, but I wouldn't want to push it). When I did my last fishless cycle and I knew It would be a couple of days before I could add my fish I added just a small amount of ammonia to tide them over. When I was finally ready to add the fish I just rechecked the ammonia and performed a PWC to remove any excess.
 
that's great!! i woke up this morning and my 125's nitrItes are a 0 too!!!!!!!!!!! woohoo!!!!!! 100% agree with OhNeil on the time frame, you waited this long, no reason to rush it now...i want to see that movie too, may go today and check it out. good luck with the tank!! ahhh, the wait is finally over!!!
 
Lol I'm a little confused with my nitrite test results lol as soon as I shake the test tube the water is dark purple then then after 5min it turns a light green blue color. Not sure were I stand ;-( anyone ever experience this?

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just1morefish said:
that's great!! i woke up this morning and my 125's nitrItes are a 0 too!!!!!!!!!!! woohoo!!!!!! 100% agree with OhNeil on the time frame, you waited this long, no reason to rush it now...i want to see that movie too, may go today and check it out. good luck with the tank!! ahhh, the wait is finally over!!!
Click to expand...

When you test for nitrite does it first come out dark purple then light blue?

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Ok so i did 2 water changes. 1 last night and the second this morning. Im getting a correct reading on my Nitrites finally and the results show i have 2-1ppm. I haven't added ammonia since last night so im not sure what my next step should be...any advice?
 
Sergiotorr said:
Ok so i did 2 water changes. 1 last night and the second this morning. Im getting a correct reading on my Nitrites finally and the results show i have 2-1ppm. I haven't added ammonia since last night so im not sure what my next step should be...any advice?
Click to expand...

It depends on how soon you plan on adding fish. I would add a little ammonia just to keep the bacteria fed while there are no fish. When I say a little I mean no more than 1 ml. Add only enough to keep the ammonia reading at 0.25 ppm.
 
i was thinking the same thing! i think what happened was that because i kept on adding 2-4ppm to the tank it completely through off the reading of nitrite with the excess ammonia still present. A strange thing happened when i added decorative rocks to the tank (i added them last night during a water change). Ammonia when up to 1ppm! so ill take a test now and report back before the night is over....
 
Tested my water this morning and it showed 5ppm of nitrite! No worries though I read up on it and what I've researched is that the nitrite stage last from 1-2 weeks! Not 3-4 days!!!! That's the only thing I think should be edited and fixed in the fishless cycle for dummies tutorial lol!!! I was panicking because my tank is tanking so long!!!

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Sergiotorr said:
Tested my water this morning and it showed 5ppm of nitrite! No worries though I read up on it and what I've researched is that the nitrite stage last from 1-2 weeks! Not 3-4 days!!!! That's the only thing I think should be edited and fixed in the fishless cycle for dummies tutorial lol!!! I was panicking because my tank is tanking so long!!!

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Click to expand...

Yep, I found that the period of time I had to wait for the nitrItes to drop down was the longest. You'll find that once it does drop it will be dramatic, pretty much overnight.
 
OhNeil1969 said:
Yep, I found that the period of time I had to wait for the nitrItes to drop down was the longest. You'll find that once it does drop it will be dramatic, pretty much overnight.
Click to expand...

Lol yeah I'm starting my 3rd week I can def be patient a few more ;-)

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just1morefish said:
hence the " nitrite cycle usually takes twice as long as the ammonia cycle" lol....
Click to expand...

Lol yeah I figured that one out the hard way! But my only issue is that my test results are thrown off because the nitrite levels being so high lol. I'm feeding the BB once in the morning and once at night. I'll cut back to only once a day and go from there...

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Ok so my tank is cycled! It took 2 weeks for my nitrites to drop ;-( lol... But I'll post pictures and give a few tips from my experience with the cycling process tonight or tomorrow morning......
 
Nice.. congrats and thanks for allowing me to follow your progress. I learned alot from you
 
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