what should i do?

[RockabillyChick]

i added biospira to my 10 gallon about 4 days ago, give or take. my nitrates and nitrites are both off the chart (the tests only go to 160 for nitrates, and 5ppm for nitrites and they're at the end of the scale) but my ammonia is still at 4.0ppm, maybe marginally lower than it was when i added the biospira. i know the bacteria are working because before i added it, both my nitrates and nitrites were 0, and within 12 hours of adding it, my nitrites went up to .5ppm and within 24 hours it was at 2ppm.

what i'm wondering is this......

since i added the biospira about 4 days ago, has it had enough time to get established in the filter and not be just floating around in the water? if it has gotten established, can i go ahead and do a 100% water change, and add fish? or should i just leave it alone until the biospira does its thing and gets rid of the ammonia and nitrites?

[mishi8]

I'd complete the fishless cycle before adding fish. I doubt that the BioSpira has completed the cycle for you. If anything, it should shorten the length of the fishless cycle. But it's also possible, with numbers off the chart, that your cycle may stall...and a water change would be in order to bring the numbers down to a readable range.

[RockabillyChick]

so i should do a partial water change to prevent a stall in the cycle?

[mishi8]

Maybe test for a couple of days first to see what happens to your numbers.

[RockabillyChick]

i did a water change. the ammonia is now going down on its own, and i'm adding a little to keep it around 1ppm. the nitrites are going up like crazy, so i'm doing small water changes to keep them within readable levels. my cycle should be done in a few days to a week.

[mishi8]

Glad to hear your ammonia is going down. However, you shouldn't need to keep doing water changes to keep the nitrites down (kind of defeats one of the purposes of doing a fishless cycle in the first place.) If you suspect your cycle has stalled, then do a PWC to bring the numbers into readable range...otherwise I'd just let the nitrites go and see what happens, and keep testing.