Nitrite

T

Trubador

AC Members
Aug 28, 2007
35
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0
I am 2 weeks into a fishy cycle with one betta fish in a 2.5 gallon minibow tank. It's going well, I have been changing 50% of the water every 2 to 3 days.

Ammonia spiked in the first few days, but since then I have not seen ANY ammonia. Nitrite is persistant though. By the 2nd or 3rd day since a water change, it gets up to between 0.5 and 1.0 ppm. I do not have a nitrate test kit yet, but I will purchase soon.

Seeing as nitrite is not going away yet, I am under the assumption that nitrobacter is not present. How many weeks does it take for this particular bacteria to show up?
 
The full cycle can take 6 - 8 weeks, often/usually a bit quicker.

You really need to do the water changes whenever .25 pmm Nitrite is present - it's highly toxic and can cause long term damage (it prevents metabolism of oxygen).
 
Maybe you could do more water changes to keep the nitrites down. I'd do 50% water changes 1x-2x a day if I were in that position. Good luck :)
 
I went through a fishy cycle through not keeping fish for years, then not joining a forum in time to learn about fishless cycling. It took me 40 and 44 days to get nitrites down to zero in my two tanks despite the fact that nitrates were showing for the last three weeks of the cycle, and I was doing daily 50-70% water changes- despite that I didn't lose any fish after day 11 of the cycle, though there may be some damage to the fish due to going through such awful water conditions. At least each time I set a new tank up now, I can use established filter media.
 
Well, I'm 2.5 weeks in and I now show NO Ammonia and NO nitrites!!! :)

For the most part, I kept the nitrite level below 0.25 ppm and 0.5ppm. I had changed the water (50%) every 2 to 3 days depending on nitrite reading. I haven't seen any ammonia in the tank since day 3 of the cycle.

Here's my next question, now that I am cycled, I want to keep it that way. In a few weeks, I'll have to change the carbon cartridge on my power filter (Whisper in tank filter). Will this ruin my cycle? Does it start over every single month? The Whisper filter is the one that comes with the 2.5 gallon minibow tank kit.
 
When you change out your filter, leave the old filter somewhere in the cartridge or clean it in tank water and let it float in the tank for a few hours. That's supposed to transfer the bacteria over.
 
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