impatient?

[liquafaction]

for eight days straight

Amonia 4.0
nitrite .25
ntrate 0

am I just being impatient?????

the shrimp have almost completely rotted away. my water cleared up, and then got cloudy again.

I did add another 2 pumps (high tide, and low tide simulation). I did find my protein skimmer, and used it for a day (before I read that you guys recomended to not). Oh yea, when I added the othr 2 pumps, I dug into the dsb to hide my plumbing.

[mogurnda]

Nitrite hangs up for longer than you might think. Be patient.

[kreblak]

It will happen, you must be patient, though. Bear in mind that ammonia levels above 4 ppm take a while to bring down. When I cycled my first tank, the ammonia rose above 6 ppm, and took forever to come down. I finally did a 25% water change to bring it down, because I got tired of waiting. If you don't start to see a solid decrease in ammonia after the fifth week of cycling, then something may be awry. How long have you been cycling total?

[cathy]

2 cents from another newbie. Make sure you have a good test kit! I went several weeks thinking I had an ammonia problem when I had none! I was using a master kit....others on this forum warned me that those kits sometimes expire on the shelf. They may seem like a good deal... I found a better LFS, got some accurate test results, and bought better kits from them. More expensive kits, but worth it.

[liquafaction]

I hope I do not have an expired test kit, I will have to check. I spent like 50 bucks on it. My lfs I found is a rip off though.

[liquafaction]

since 7/8/03

[cathy]

I think we all have to learn a little bit the hard way.... bear in mind, though a faulty kit MAY be a part of your problem, but not necessarily so. What happened to us was, we used the damsel/live rock routine for setting up our tank. And, I think that at least some of the live rock was really good stuff (we bought rock from two different places). All sorts of creatures came out of the crevices! So we probably had a good dose of the right kinds of bacteria from the get go. Any ways, after adding a couple of damsels, ammonia readings went from 0 to 0.5. And they stayed there. For 8 weeks! We never had any nitrite or nitrate register with the kit. I took water into another place, they used dipsticks for testing, and the results weren't much different. We were coming up on an out of town trip, and were ancy about not doing a water change before that. The night before the water change, a green polyp that had grown out of the rock looked sick. I thought - oh, oh! but before I went to bed, lo and behold, one polyp had become two! So I thought, if I have multiplying polyps, my water can't be so bad! We did the water change anyways, and came back from vacation to find all was well. Now it was time to change one of the filter components; after this was accomplished I retested - ammonia still 0.5. Then I did some serious shopping around. I found another LFS, and had them test my water. NO ammonia. Every other parameter checked out fine too. So I bought a couple of kits from them; the brand is Sera. They are sold as individual components, not a whole kit. So I only have a few for right now.
your situation may be different. You currently have an ammonia reading of 4; did you ever get a lower reading with your kit? If its always been at the same level, or if it doesn't change after you wait some more, I would question the kit. Your only 8 days into it, you probably should give it more time. But what you could do is take a water sample into another LFS. From my experience and what I've heard from others, I would be picky. If the LFS is using just another dipstick or another master kit, go elsewhere.

[tmace64]

same thing,,, i too wonder when the cycle will ever end. I've experienced these cloudy spells. My 44 gal has been simmering since june first.:o

[greeneyedlady]

Took 6 weeks to cycle my 75g, patience is a thing you have to learn with saltwater:)