Fishless Cycle and missing Nitrites

[dbmoore1]

So I am trying to do a fishless cycle on my first ever fish tank. It's a 20 gallon freshwater tank. I started the process about 2 weeks ago (May 5th) and dechlorinated the water with Seachem Prime. I found pure ammonia no sulfates (not an easy task) and added it to the tank until I got the API test to show a reading of about 4 ppm. at that time the tank readings were:
Temp: 82 F
Ammonia: 4 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 0 ppm
pH: 7.6

So for the next 10 days or so me and my daughters tested the water and the ammonia stayed at 4 ppm. Not a surpirse since we don't have any seeding material. About 2 days ago we noticed a subtle difference in the ammonia reading (slightly lighter shade of green). So it might have dropped to 2 or 3 ppm ammonia. So starting yesterday we began testing all the other factors again. Here is where it gets wierd.
Readings from May 16th (yesterday):
Temp: 82 F
Ammonia: 2-3 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 20 ppm
pH: 7.6

So where are the nitrites??? and why am I getting increased nitrates when my ammonia has barely dropped???

So I added more ammonia today (May 17th) to get it back to 4 ppm and then I took another set of full readings:
Temp: 82 F
Ammonia: 4 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 40 ppm
pH: 7.6

So what's going on??? How on earth am I getting nitrates to climb like crazy but my ammonia has only needed to be topped off once and why is the nitrite reading just at a dead zero???

Thanks for helping a newbie in the weeds

 

[jlk]

Hi! First, no worries! Tanks do not always follow 'exactly' how you would expect them to. Lets first rule out any possible 'errors'. Are you following the directions for the nitrate test exactly? Make sure you bang (hard) the bottles on a hard surface & REALLY shake them for a full 2mins before testing. Next, if you havent already done so, make sure you check your tap water for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate & let us know how these results look.

Ok, if all is well, let the ammonia drop to 0- .25 before redosing to 4ppm. Continue checking nitrites, ph & nitrates & keep us posted!!

 

[dbmoore1]

fishless hopefully not clueless

Yes I had read somewhere that ya have to smack the heck out of the Nitrate bottle. So I did beat it up while shaking it. I didn't do it for 2 minutes though I only did it for a little over 1 minute. I'll try that on my next test.

I'm going to test my tap water tonight. I think your supposed to let it sit for a while before ya test. Is an hour enough?

Thanks.

 

[jlk]

Your probably ok with the nitrate test! Just have to check because some people dont realize the bottles have to be shaken before testing... You dont have to let your tap sit before testing- you can test your ammonia, nitrite & nitrate straight out of the faucet. For ph, you will need to set out a container of tap for 24hrs with an airstone or bubbler. If you dont have an extra, just give the water a good stir every so often. This will help it to release gasses which can affect ph levels.

 

[dbmoore1]

OK well that's an eye opener! So this is the tap water readings:
Ammonia: 0.25 - 0.50 ppm (really light green so tough to tell which it is)
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 40 ppm (Yikes!)

So here is what I think happened and it's all on me : (
When I did the first test on May 5th I hadn't heard about the "shake the heck out of your Nitrate test fluids" bit. So that was probably a false reading due to a bad test.
The second full test (May 16th) yesterday I did the shake bit but maybe not enough so I got the 20 ppm value for nitrates. It was probably 40 ppm then too but still didn't have the full shake/bang method down.

So in reality most of the water values have been the same for 2 weeks straight! All that really happened was a slight drop in ammonia in the last few days of 1 or maybe 2 ppm.

So I guess its back to the waiting game. But this brings up a whole new question. What do I do about tap water that right out of the gate has ammonia and nitrates in it? Should I even use my tap water for the tank?

 

[librarygirl]

Your tap water doesn't have much ammonia, once the cycle progresses the bacteria will consume that rather quickly so it'll be fine. Nitrates are a bit tricky; they aren't as toxic to fish as ammonia or nitrite but nitrates approaching 40+ isn't the greatest. You may just have to do a 2-3 smaller weekly water changes instead of one larger one once you get fish to limit the amount of nitrates you're putting into the tank. Some live plants that are good nitrate eating plants would help. Something like adding purigen to your filter can help absorb those too. For now though since there's no fish don't worry about it. Let's get the tank cycled first.

Yep that API nitrate test is a bugger. I shake and bang both bottles vigorously for 30 seconds (the directions say to shake bottle #2 for that long only and it doesn't say anything about the banging lol). Once both bottles of drops are in the tube you want to shake the dickens out of the tube for a full 60 seconds then let it sit for 5 minutes before taking a reading.

 

[dbmoore1]

questioning test results

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you about the ammonia levels 0.25 ppm isn't perfect but can be managed. After doing more research about our water utility Co. I think my Nitrate test isn't accurate. We have public water from aqua america just outside of Philadelphia PA. Their posted test show our water supply to have a Nitrate level between 1.4 to 4.8 ppm with a max spike allowed of 10 ppm. So based on that my test showing 40 + ppm has to be way off.

Are there any other Nitrate tests besides API? I need a way to validate these really high readings before I jump through a bunch of hoops to deal with it.

 

[jlk]

Ok, quick question. Does your API chart show nitrate readings as basically the same color orange for 5, 10, 20 ppm? Are you getting this orange color or is it an orangey-red or plain red? Ill explain this further once i know the exact color you are seeing.

Second thing is this, I live in the Philadelphia suburbs (montgomery co) as well & actually have had my water professionally tested. My nitrate levels came back @8 although the water co swears they are no higher than 5. That said, my nitrate levels vary quite a bit- on any given day, they may be as low as 5 or as high as 20+. I simply stopped worrying about them & started increasing the amount of plants to help deal with any that may be present.

 

[dbmoore1]

Here is a picture of a reading I took today. The phote is a little darker than it actually appears but it sure seems red to us.


Just seems nuts that a public utility would be that out of whack?
I understand the idea of helping things out with live plants but man that scares me. I'm worried I'll even understand everything I need to do the keep fish happy and healthy so adding on growing and keeping aquatic plants seems like I'm going from 0 to 60 in levels of aquarium keeping.

 

[librarygirl]

Here's a thread from someone who had the same issue: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f15/nitrates-40ppm-in-tap-water-135663.html

You might have to resort to cutting the water with something like RO water (reverse osmosis). 40 ppms of nitrate though is usually not very safe even for drinking so you should contact your water municipality.

 

[jlk]

Looking at the pic it looks more orangey red than completely red. Orangey-red is a nitrate reading @10-20ppm. The color chart that is in the master test kit is a different one than the color chart in the individual tests. That said, I agree with Librarygirl that you should contact your municipality. They will come out & test your water at no charge to you. But, dont expect them to agree with the results you are seeing. They will deny nitrates are present at this level and as I discovered, there really isnt a whole lot you can do. Legally, the maximum allowable nitrate level for public water sources is 10ppm. You can also contact the EPA's safe drinking water hotline for further help: 800-426-4791