Fishless Cycle Back on track - Should I reduce the Ammonia?

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bartman

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Jun 10, 2004
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I wanted to let everyone know the skin like stuff is gone and everything is back on track.

My cycle is now 9 days old and things are starting to take shape.

In the last 24 hrs the ammonia dropped to .25 from 4. The nitrites are starting are now .25 - .5

Nitrates are now between 40 - 60.

Temp still at 82F and the PH is 8.4

KH is 180 but GH has dropped to somewhere between 150 and 300 from a solid 300

Its a 55 gallon tank with the RTR over engineered RUGF and a Aqua Via 650 (sponge and floss only for now).

Do I bring the ammonia back to 2ppm or 4ppm at this point?
 
I would suggest you bring your ammonia up to 2 ppm, the Nitrites will then have enough to feed off to rise to a good cycling level.

I find it odd that you have Nitrates when your cycle isn't complete. Correct me if I am wrong but you should not have ANY nitrates until your nitrites have spiked, and are declining.

~ MyShrimpDied
 
Thank you Myshrimpdied, thats exactly what I did last night.

It may be happening because (which I forgot to metion :emb:) I seeded this from a very well established tank that is over crowded (the reason I built this tank). In that tank I have difficulties maintaining a low nitrate level but never anny ammonia or nitrites.

Well between the nitrates rising and the GH falling I thought I would put this out there and ask the group for some insight. The PH has remained the same and even slightly risen during this roller coaster week. My guess is the ammonia is the culprit for the falling GH / rising PH, but Im not sure.

The first couple of days the ammonia was dropping 2ppm but there were no nitrites. Then it stalled for 4 days when the skin like stuff showed up, and when the ammonia stayed at 4ppm, I did not test further (error on my part :rolleyes:). To be honest with you, I am not sure if the nitrites didnt spike during those 4 days. I am going to do all 6 tests each day from this point on... Boy scouts honor!

Im not really worried about this, but this is my first fishless cycle and just looking for a better understanding of my experience. Any insight is appreciated.
 
The nitrification process itself burns up GH -two milli-equivalents for each milli-equivalent of ammonia-nitrogen oxidized to nitrate (if you are a chemist), so the GH is always affected in fishless cycling. Whether or not this hits the pH or reads on the tests depends on how heavily the water is buffered to start with, and detectability of this or of any material - such as your nitrite - are also dependent on the test sensitivity. Sensitivity and accuracy are not strong points in hobby tests, but they are quite close enough for practical purposes.
 
Thank RTR! Im not a chemist, just a pesimist. Maybe the drop in the GH is an indication the Nitrite were active during the ammonia stall, even though that does not make any sense to me.

BTW, I really love the OERUGF. When I seeded the tank with junk from the filter, I was impressed how it hovers slightly above the substrate and then gets sucked up into the filter intake... I think everyone should have this in their tank.
 
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