Hi, after 4 weeks of cycling, I've finally come to the end. With ammonia=0, nitrite=0, and nitrate=10. At first I thought maybe the nitrate looked low, because I got the impression from the stickie about cycling that nitrate's suppose to be high, so I kept dosing ammonia for three or four days and less than 24 hours, ammonia would always go to zero, nitrite stayed at zero, and nitrate stayed at 10. Yesterday I was ready to get fish, so I did a 90% water change. After I did the water change, I did another test. For some reason nitrites went to 1 and nitrates went up to 80. I'm using the AP freshwater test. I tested again after 8 hours, and it was still like that. I've tested the tap water before, and it doesn't contain any nitrites or nitrates. The only chemical I've added to the water when I changed it was the AP Tapwater Conditioner. Any insights into this sudden increase of nitrite and nitrate AFTER a 90% water change would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all.
Cycling Problem
- Thread starter P00rColl3geBoi
- Start date
It is possible that when you put the water back into the tank, you kicked up some detrius that had accumulated in your tank and was the reason for high nitrite readings. I just changed out the substrate (gravel to sand) in my 55 gallon tank and while I had been testing the tank about once a week to once every two weeks and got 0 for nitrite and ammonia, I tested the water when it was still cloudy from taking out the gravel (there was a lot of wastes and detrius that had built up on the tank floor), I got readings that would say my tank is not cycled at all.
Is your tap water from a city source or from a well? It is also possible that well water can change a bit and suddenly read as having ammonia or nitrates. City water usually doesnt though because of the chlorine in the system.
Other than that, I wouldnt know what to say. What are you planning on stocking the tank with? It might be an ok idea to purchase one or two of the most hardy species of fish that you intend to keep in order to 'test' the cycle. I would think that if you had any major problems after doing so, they would be very short term anyways.
Hope this helps at least a little bit. Make sure you are cleaning out your substrate with a siphon vac really well with each water change!
Is your tap water from a city source or from a well? It is also possible that well water can change a bit and suddenly read as having ammonia or nitrates. City water usually doesnt though because of the chlorine in the system.
Other than that, I wouldnt know what to say. What are you planning on stocking the tank with? It might be an ok idea to purchase one or two of the most hardy species of fish that you intend to keep in order to 'test' the cycle. I would think that if you had any major problems after doing so, they would be very short term anyways.
Hope this helps at least a little bit. Make sure you are cleaning out your substrate with a siphon vac really well with each water change!
My water's from a city source. I'm thinking about having 6 diamond tetras, 6 white fin rosy tetras, 6 cories, 6 silver hatches, and two or three angels
I see nobody else could comment on this. I decided to wait for the debris to settle down a little bit for about 8 hours, when I tested again, ammonia is at 0, nitrite is around 2.5 and nitrate is still at 80. I'm going to change out 6 gallons of water and see how it goes. Should I keep dosing ammonia or should I just stop so nitrite would die out, nitrate's high enough now anyway.
I'd test your tap water also. You mentioned you had tested it before, but that doesn't mean they have done something recent.
You did a fishless cycle with ammonia, right, so it doesn't seem you would have any debri to stir up. Are your filters running, preventing any dead spots that might have a higher concentration, and it mixed better on the 90% change?
You did a fishless cycle with ammonia, right, so it doesn't seem you would have any debri to stir up. Are your filters running, preventing any dead spots that might have a higher concentration, and it mixed better on the 90% change?
Yeah it was a fishless cycle. I've got a AC50 and an AC30 running on the tank. I changed out 6 gallons of water and put in 6 gallons of filtered drinking water from the store, the readings are stll the same. Should I just let the tank sit and wait for the nitrites to die on their own since there's no ammonia left in the tank? I'll test the water again soon to see if there's nitrite and nitrate in the tap. Thanks
I have gravel at the bottom. When Tommy said "substrate" I thought he meant that when the water hit the fake log in the tank, the bacteria that had settled on the log got separated from it, so now there's a higher concentration floating in the water. If that makes sense.
I just wanted to make sure you didn't use fishfood for your ammonia source. I don't think you would be able to see the bacteria that is doing the work. Check your tap readings, let it sit for a day and see what your tank reads.
rbishop, now that you said something, I remembered that at the beginning I did use some fish food because I was iffy about dumping ammonia into the tank. Then after three days of putting in fishfood, I saw no results and I was a little impatient so THEN I went to walmart and bought clear ammonia to continue the cycle. I never siphoned out the fishfood, so is that what could be messing up my readings? Thanks