Cycling Issues

N

nicshoe18

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Apr 15, 2009
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Hey everyone! Still new to the forum. I've combed through tons of posts and have no answer to my problem. Cycling has been extremely fast for me until now. There are fish and live plants in the tank. Ammonia and Nitrite spiked within ten days. Now Nitrate is at 40ppm and Nitrite is maxed out at 5.0! New tank.

Problem: Nitrite will not move going into third week now. Have done two water changes to momentarily drop the nitrite levels, but they just climb back up in a couple of days. I've tried increasing aeriation, reduced feedings, and now water changes. Nitrates are obviously on the rise but Nitrites won't go anywhere. My swordtails however have been showing signs of bloating. I do a water change and the swelling goes down within half a day maybe. But as soon as Nitrites get high again, they start to swell up.

I can't seem to figure this one out. Is there anyone that might be able to help?
 
hmm, perhaps you are overstocking your tank.

do you have ammonia readings?

how is your stocking?
 
Sorry, still new to the boards, Couldn't find replies, email notifications, my posts, etc.
My appologies for the double post!!

As in other post, bioload was added in middle of cycle. I detoxified chemically the remaining ammonia, Nitrites unaltered and continued to rise. This makes six fish on the tank's first cycle. Right now, ammonia levels are trace, and I mean very trace. They barely even register, yet theres just a slight hint of green. I know this is going to be a daily/bidaily maintnance issue, I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be doing until things calm down a bit.
 
The nitrite spike can be the scariest. It is much longer than the ammonia spike. Keep doing big water changes and it will go away. It may be a couple more weeks.
 
You should be doing at least 25% daily water changes. If I somehow wound up in this situation, I would be doing one 50% water change every 12 hours. I would also add Seachem Stability ASAP at 3xdose, and continue on the reccomended dosage. What size is the tank, what fish do you have, and how many?
 
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Planted tank, maybe 1/3 of the tank planted

30gal.

2 swordtails, 4 black skirt tetras

I have been doing 30%-50% wc's every 2 days. Swordtails will start to show signs of bloating, then I'll do a wc. Everybody is behaving normally, swimming normally, no gill discoloration or gasping for breath. Just the swelling. I've cut back on feedings and increased aeriation to try and speed up the process a little. Should I be doing wc's only or should I be siphoning the waste during the water change?
 
gravel vac can't hurt, but the ideal would be to do the waterchanges before the fish show signs of problems. I really reccomend upping your water changes to at least daily. As long as you properly condition the water, and equalize temp, you can't change it too much. (assuming that the fish haven't adapted to bad water, which yours haven't had time to.) Seachem stability will bring your nitrites down quickly, so that you can start slowing down on the water changes. Cycle also works, but in my experience, not as well.
 
The nitrite spiking stage is really the most hectic phase of cycling and it's the longest lasting. It's not uncommon for people to do water changes once or twice a day through the worse of this just to keep the fish alive. Hang in there.. it does get better.

You do need to siphon out the waste building up in the tank, btw. Just avoid making radical changes to everything until the cycle is done. And only use tank water when cleaning your filter media.

Best of luck!
 
If you are seeing 5 ppm of nitrites, do several 50% water changes until you get it below 0.25 ppm. You have fish in the tank that are suffocating because the nitrites interfere with their ability to use oxygen just like carbon monoxide would do to you. You never "wait" for nitrites to come down in a fishy cycle, you change water and drive them down. There is no good reason not to do large daily water changes and get your nitrites under control.
 
Day 5 of 30% daily water changes and still no change in Nitrite. Nitrite still above 5ppm and now Nitrates have dropped below 20. Any thoughts?
 
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