Still cycling but weird numbers

[stasia8756]

Week 3 of a 29g fishy cycle with 5 leopard danios and three cories. Live plants, moderately heavy planted. Started out with 3 danios and 1 cory but at the end of week 2 put plants in and the other fish. There have yet to be any measurable nitrites but the nitrate is at 5 already. Ammonia hasn't gone over .50 the whole time due to water changes but is still measurable. I'm not that familiar yet with the cycling process so would nitrates show up before the cycle was complete? I'm trying to figure out where the tank is in the cycle. Thanks to anyone who can enlighten me.

Stasia

[ct-death]

No more fish until the cycle is done (you have plenty for the fish-cycle process) - especially the Corys; they don't tend to do too well :(

What type of test kit do you have? Strips? If liquid make sure you shake bottles before use (and use both) ;) <-not that I ever did that!! :eek:

Also make sure you are not simply misreading the nitrItes for nitrAtes...?

Lastly, plase make sure to keep Ammonia and nitrItes below 0.25 please. Anything more is very harmeful to the fish.

[stasia8756]

Thanks, I use the liquid test kits, so I have one for each to prevent any confusion. This is the second tank I've cycled so have some testing experience built up. Guess I'll keep doing the water changes till it finishes the cycle. Hope that helps the cories. The emerald and the albino cories in the first tank survived the cycle process ok.

Stasia

[ct-death]

Glad to hear the other Corys are good (Not that I'm bias - see avatar ;))

The other thing to check is your tap water. Sorry I didn't think of it earlier, but I bet that's the source.

You should start to see nitrItes spike up in the next couple of days BTW.