Fishless cycle question

[Mixer]

I wouldn't say super heavily planted, but I have a few.

It is a 10 gallon tank.

 

[Mixer]

I do have another tank that is cycled and doesn't have any nitrates, and it only has a few plants. It's a 36 gallon bow front.

 

[eco23]

I don't know a lot about planted tanks, but I can't believe they would take over 40ppm down to 0 in 2 days. Do me a favor, test nitrAtes again. Make sure you shake the living heck out of the #2 solution for a solid 30 seconds, and then shake the whole thing vigorously for 1 minute. Something doesn't add up here.

 

[eco23]

I'm gonna do some research, but I just can't believe the plants would be capable of doing that...I could be wrong though.

 

[eco23]

I'm seeing a lot about plants helping keep nitrAtes in check, but I haven't seen anything about it completely taking them out...seems unreal to me. I anxiously await the results of your repeated test.

 

[eco23]

Especially the way you've been dosing up the ammonia. A lot of ammonia creates a lot of nitrItes that create a lot of nitrates. The two types of bacteria when the tank is cycled handle the first two, but there's not a third kind that eats the nitrates. They're the end product of the nitrogen cycle.

 

[eco23]

Let me see if a guy is online who's a walking encyclopedia...he'll know the answer.

 

[Mixer]

Ok here is the test, I even strictly timed the nitrate test and the 5 minute wait time before taking this picture.

 

[eco23]

I have an absolute genius of this hobby hopefully coming to take a peak. Hang tight.

 

[eco23]

Hard to tell from the light, but are you sure there's no nitrAtes? It looks darker than zero, but the tube held up to the results card makes it look darker. Very, very strange. We'll get an answer.

 

[Mixer]

Hey I appreciate it, so I guess I will dose it up again tonight and go to bed. Catch y'all tomorrow.

 

[eco23]

Sounds like a plan. You've definitely got me interested. We'll figure it out.

 

[Shadowraven]

Your nitrates being at zero is certainly unusual, but not unheard of. Your plants are probably soaking up the nitrates in the tank. I have heard of this occurring before with planted tanks. BTW, Your plants look nice and healthy.

Remember that you are cycling with an artificial source of ammonia and not with living, breathing animals. You don't have any organisms living in the water that are constantly adding to the bioload. So very minimal bioload. Depending on when you last added some ammonia, the cycle may have completed again and nitrates might have already been absorbed. Just don't let those little guys go hungry, keep them fed. You can't afford to have them die off.

I think that you are good to go, but I tend to lean towards caution. Just to be safe, continue what you are doing. Watch it for a couple of days more and test the water a few times each day. I think that you will find that you are now ready to add fish.

Also make sure that your test equipment is completely cleaned out before you test the water. You don't want some leftover residue skewing your results.

BTW, it's good that you are posting pictures of your test results online, but I'm slightly color-blind. I'll need someone to interpret those results for me. It's a problem I've always had with these kind of test kits.

 

[ejaramillo01]

Ok here is the test, I even strictly timed the nitrate test and the 5 minute wait time before taking this picture.

The nitrates test looks to me orange, not light yellow. Orange means a low amount of nitrates, maybe 5 ppm.
Water parameters look good to me.

 

[eco23]

Hey I learned something! I had no idea nitrAtes could actually drop to 0 that fast with only a few plants. Now I know for the future. Congrats on getting everything done!

 

[Mixer]

Ok so after I dosed last night and went to bed, I have been thinking about this all day. So I came home and did another test 12 hours after dosing with ammonia.

1. I was doing the nitrate test wrong, I had mis-read the instructions.
2. I was doing the other tests correctly.
3. Something screwy is still going on, 12 hours after dosing my ammonia is 0, my nitrites are 6 or 7, my nitrates are ~90, they are not brown enough to be 160.

So I will continue to dose, should I dose twice a day to keep the ammonia up? Or should once a day be sufficient? I want to thank everyone for their help on this.

 

[Deckape]

Maybe dose a little. Just to keepem fed...I would only do 1 ppm

 

[Mixer]

So yeah, I'm starting to think that maybe this test looks so high because I did the 4ppm dose again, and most of the ammonia is gone 12 hours later. Which is a good indicator that I have good colonies of both bacteria.

I will dose to 1ppm daily for a few days and watch what it does.

 

[Deckape]

Cool. That will do it I think.

 

[eco23]

Sorry if you answered this already, but have you done a pwc during this cycle?