Cycle stalled?

Carpguy is correct.

No KH means no bicarbonate for the bacteria and they die off. Small colonies die off very quickly.

IME baking soda does not fix the problem.

Within a week my water department had futzed with the water supply and the KH dropped from 3 to 1-2. I had just tested a few days beforehand, and did not test again before I started to cycle.

I started to cycle mine fishless with filter media as my Bio Spira was late and I wanted to get a "jump start".

pH crashed late on day two (I was showing ammonia, nitrites and nitrates) and an entire box of baking soda did not help at all. I would raise the KH to 5 or 6 and it would be 0 in hours.

I had to do a massive water change to bring the KH back to 1 and then add soda to make it 4.

Roan
 
Ok. So I'll just keep monitoring my kH and pH to make sure it dosen't happen again and then give it time to adjust.

I have crushed coral and shells in my filter but its not doing anything and heard it can take a long time. I was also told that everytime you water change you would be removing what the coral put in the water and have to wait for it to build back up in the water. Not sure if its correct though. I'll have to recheck another thread to see if anyone posted a response.
 
After reading another thread do you think I might have had an oxygen deficiency if the baceteria are using oxygen? There is little to no suface agitation because my spraybar is pointed downward, should I point it up to agitate the water?
 
How much crushed coral is in your filter?

The cycle stalled because of the pH crash.

If you want to increase the surface agitation, there's no harm in that but I don't think that's the problem.
 
Maybe a quarter to half an inch layer? Its a decent amount.
 
It seems what nitrite eaters I had might have died :( . I had been holding steady at .5 nitrites after dosing 2ppm ammonia daily. Today it was 2ppm. It seems like the pH crash might have done more damage than I expected. Still holding steady at .75ppm ammonia though. Ugh.
 
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