fddlss
Aquarium Advice Freak
Hi guys,
After reading a lot and trying to be as informed as possible I finally started my cycle exactly a week ago.
My heater is steady at 86.6 F to encourage the bacteria's metabolism and I try to oxygenate the water as much as I can.
I started with 5ppm of ammonia (Janitoral Strength from ACE Hardware, 10%) and It took about 3 days to drop to 1 or 2 ppm, at that point I added enough ammonia to raise it back to 4ppm and now it takes less than 12 hours to drop 4ppm to 0.25 or 0 ppm. Nitrites are still high, dark purple, a little darker than what the API test kit can measure so it's more than 5.0 ppm. I'm at day 7 now and what I'm doing is adding ammonia everyday, enough to raise it to 3-4ppm, but my question is, being that it takes less than 12 hours for the bacteria to convert ammonia into nitrites, shouldn't I raise the ammonia to 3-4ppm every 12 hours instead of once a day? Isn't bad that the bacteria may be staying below 0.50 ppm for hours until I add more ammonia?
Thanks.
After reading a lot and trying to be as informed as possible I finally started my cycle exactly a week ago.
My heater is steady at 86.6 F to encourage the bacteria's metabolism and I try to oxygenate the water as much as I can.
I started with 5ppm of ammonia (Janitoral Strength from ACE Hardware, 10%) and It took about 3 days to drop to 1 or 2 ppm, at that point I added enough ammonia to raise it back to 4ppm and now it takes less than 12 hours to drop 4ppm to 0.25 or 0 ppm. Nitrites are still high, dark purple, a little darker than what the API test kit can measure so it's more than 5.0 ppm. I'm at day 7 now and what I'm doing is adding ammonia everyday, enough to raise it to 3-4ppm, but my question is, being that it takes less than 12 hours for the bacteria to convert ammonia into nitrites, shouldn't I raise the ammonia to 3-4ppm every 12 hours instead of once a day? Isn't bad that the bacteria may be staying below 0.50 ppm for hours until I add more ammonia?
Thanks.