Yes! I Have Nitrites!!

congrats! I know when I waited 2 months for MY tank to cycle . What kind of fish are you planning to get, and how big is your tank?

remember, get small amounts of fish at a time.. or you'll suffer the consequences(recycling the tank again!)! :

I've been cycling my new 10 gallon for about ten days now. No fish, but lots of plants, some from my old tank (anarchis, water sprite), some new (java fern, amazon sword, hornwort and, yesterday, cabomba), as well as an HOB filter, rocks, & some snails. And, naturally, green algae, but not a huge amount.

Ammonia showed up right a way, strong and deep blue-green (dangerously pretty). Without any being added, somehow it got there. By the end of week one (Sunday 10/1) it was down to pretty near zero (I use the Tetra chemical tests). I tested nitrItes next and they were deep cherry red. Last night (Tuesday), I wasn't concentrating, messed up the nitrIte test, didn't run it again, but decided to see if I had any nitrAtes yet. Sure did! 25 mg/l. This afternoon (Wednesday) my nitrItes are a little weaker (decreasing, around 0.8 mg/l). It seems odd to me that I can have both high nitrItes and high nitrAtes, but I think it means my cycling is going well and in a week or so, after changing out a gallon or so of water every day, I can start adding fish I await yellow nitrItes. Good thing the cycling tank is so pretty as it is now.

So you WANT to see nitrites when cycling a new tank? I don't get it. I went out and bought Nitra Zorb because I got a reading of .25 after the first week of cycling. Did I mess up? :help:

wow, that was a long time. For my tank, the nitrite showed up on the second day about 0.25 ppm. On the fifth day, it was about 4-5 ppm. The nitrate showed up on the sixth day about 5.0 ppm.

rsanz said:

Yeah, I know they're bad, but I finally got Nintrites showing on my water test! I have waited 6 weeks for Nintrites to show up, just hoping that my tank would eventually cycle. Finally, I am moving on to the next step of cycling!

My test results were:

Ammonia: 0.5ppm
Nitrites: 0.25 ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm

So now, about how long should it take for my tank to finish cycling? I'm very excited about getting my next fish, but I'm waiting for my tank to completely cycle.

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ratherbe said:

So you WANT to see nitrites when cycling a new tank? I don't get it. I went out and bought Nitra Zorb because I got a reading of .25 after the first week of cycling. Did I mess up? :help:

Click to expand...

If you are fishless cycling, then yes, you want to see Nitrites, and lots of them, as soon as possible.

Fishy cycling, then no, you don't want a lot of them, although .25 is not too harmful, and you need SOME in the water for cycling to take place. Finding that balancing point is why fishy cycling is so dangerous for fish.

SirWired

I am fishy cycling. I'm moving to a 55 gallon from a 30 gallon, and used some water and fake plants from the existing tank. Is it okay that I'm using the Nitra-Zorb, or should I take it out? I just put it in about 8 hours ago. I haven't done another test to check on the nitrite level yet.

Okay, I misspoke. After reading a sticky, I'm using established filter media for cycling. Still don't quite understand when it's safe to add fish though?!? And if I should be trying to lower the .25 in Nitrites with Nitra-Zorb?

I would say wait until your cycle is over until you add more fish. From what I understand though once you add more fish your going to have another cycle. The 2nd cycle won't be so bad it will only be a mini.