SoveriegnR
Aquarium Advice Regular
So this is new to me, as the last tank (and first I ever did) I started went flawlessly with the cycling process. I've done the same thing this time but with 2 changes. We'll get to those later.
Before, I was dosing to 4ppm of ammonia and withing 24hrs it was almost gone, so I'd drop in a tiny bit more to bring it up so it wouldn't disappear overnight. My Nitrites were rising, everything seemed fine!
However, my tank was beginning to get super disgusting. I don't have access to a hose, so when i bought my bag of pea gravel from Home Depot, I could only rinse it via buckets of water by hand. Doesn't get nearly as clean. Upon adding it, my tank was super dirty for about 2 days before my filter came in, it then took 2 more days for it to clear up with the filter running.
However, about a week in a half in, the filter started spitting out chunks of dirt it had sucked up back into the water, it was settling over EVERYTHING! I couldn't stand it anymore and did a huge water change.
These were my 2 changes that differed from last time. Last time, I used sand from the pet store and never did a WC during my cycle.
Ever since the WC, my tank has been sitting at about 2ppm of ammonia, and my nitrite readings have gotten super weird. My nitrite vial goes from dark purple to this weird green-blue color (NOT the light blue one usually gets when getting a 0 reading of nitrites) BUT IT DOESN'T ALWAYS HAPPEN! It's baffling me... Some days it stays a medium purple, other days it goes from super dark to that blue-green color. I do the test the SAME WAY each time.
My Nitrates? Well... my LFS tested it and was getting SUPER rich red within 5min of the test, like... almost instantly. But when I test it? It stays a light orange/yellow for over 10 minutes before even remotely going dark. Another funky thing.
Did my WC mess up my cycle? I was told by a couple of long-timers that it should be okay, but ever since then I've been getting strange readings.
Do I have a faulty test kit? I'd hate to go and dump $30 more on another API Master kit if it's not at fault...
If my cycle is indeed stalled... how do I fix it? Just let it sit?
This whole situation is very frustrating.
Before, I was dosing to 4ppm of ammonia and withing 24hrs it was almost gone, so I'd drop in a tiny bit more to bring it up so it wouldn't disappear overnight. My Nitrites were rising, everything seemed fine!
However, my tank was beginning to get super disgusting. I don't have access to a hose, so when i bought my bag of pea gravel from Home Depot, I could only rinse it via buckets of water by hand. Doesn't get nearly as clean. Upon adding it, my tank was super dirty for about 2 days before my filter came in, it then took 2 more days for it to clear up with the filter running.
However, about a week in a half in, the filter started spitting out chunks of dirt it had sucked up back into the water, it was settling over EVERYTHING! I couldn't stand it anymore and did a huge water change.
These were my 2 changes that differed from last time. Last time, I used sand from the pet store and never did a WC during my cycle.
Ever since the WC, my tank has been sitting at about 2ppm of ammonia, and my nitrite readings have gotten super weird. My nitrite vial goes from dark purple to this weird green-blue color (NOT the light blue one usually gets when getting a 0 reading of nitrites) BUT IT DOESN'T ALWAYS HAPPEN! It's baffling me... Some days it stays a medium purple, other days it goes from super dark to that blue-green color. I do the test the SAME WAY each time.
My Nitrates? Well... my LFS tested it and was getting SUPER rich red within 5min of the test, like... almost instantly. But when I test it? It stays a light orange/yellow for over 10 minutes before even remotely going dark. Another funky thing.
Did my WC mess up my cycle? I was told by a couple of long-timers that it should be okay, but ever since then I've been getting strange readings.
Do I have a faulty test kit? I'd hate to go and dump $30 more on another API Master kit if it's not at fault...
If my cycle is indeed stalled... how do I fix it? Just let it sit?
This whole situation is very frustrating.