Currently have a fish in cycle since 1-20. I've been checking my levels daily and my ammonia is about. 25ppm, nitrite. 25ppm and nitrate approximately 5.0ppm. I have also been doing 45% water changes every three days to help prevent stress on my fish. Last night I tested my water and my ammonia was at 1ppm, nitrite still at.25ppm and nitrate at 5.0ppm. I did a 50% water change as my last one was the night of 2-5-13. This morning I am at 0ppm ammonia, .50 nitrite and 5.0ppm. Did I do something wrong? How did I go from having 1ppm of ammonia to zero overnight?
Quick question about levels when cycling?
- Thread starter leporea
- Start date
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librarygirl
Look It Up
Hi and welcome! What size tank and what fish?
Don't question a good thing, you want ammonia at 0. Since nitrites are rising I"m suspecting you might be past the ammonia phase (which means you have enough bacteria to process the ammonia into nitrite) and are into the nitrite phase, which is a second set of bacteria which unfortunately grow a little slower. So you want to keep nitrite as low as you can as well (ideally don't let it rise over .25). So go ahead and do a 50% water change to get those nitrites down if you haven't already and just keep testing and doing water changes as needed.
Don't question a good thing, you want ammonia at 0. Since nitrites are rising I"m suspecting you might be past the ammonia phase (which means you have enough bacteria to process the ammonia into nitrite) and are into the nitrite phase, which is a second set of bacteria which unfortunately grow a little slower. So you want to keep nitrite as low as you can as well (ideally don't let it rise over .25). So go ahead and do a 50% water change to get those nitrites down if you haven't already and just keep testing and doing water changes as needed.
