cycling???

It can get really, really high. Basically, ammonia will continue to rise if there is a source (fish or decaying matter) until the bacteria can start consuming. Until the bacteria population reaches a certain size, ammonia just keeps rising, then suddenly starts dropping. Do you have any nitrites yet?

Different animals have different tolerances for wastes. Many detrivore snails can put up with pretty high levels of ammonia, but keel over if exposed to a sudden change in pH.
 
yes...nitites are also very high...was expecting the cycle to end at least 4 days age when the nitrites maxed out also..my nitrats started to rise before i did the water change..they were the only observable decrease that happened.


thanks for the snail advice.. :)
 
Did you get uncured l.r. ? If so I would suspect either a large rock boring sponge or clam etc. Take a close look at your rocks and if one seems to be exuding large amounts of slime and smells like the worse thing known to man it may be the culprit. If that's the case take it out and cure in a bucket or what ever and it might help your nitrate issue.
 
no slime or stink....had gotten the lr the after i noticed the nitrates....but it got me thinking...i might be an idiot. I'm using the rock my father was using in his tank from several years back which I had soked for two days but it still had some dried algea on...could this be my cycling problem. to much of this dried algea....eithr way i'm taking out piece by piece and and cleaning again. first time nothing really came off but now it seems to just fall off.
Getting back to the nitrates, could this be caused by the biological filter i'm using(3 stage)in my skilter. Got it for cycling and the carbon really clears the water up. was going to slowly take out stage by stage once the tank cycled


also did another 60% water change tonight and my amm went down to a whopping 6ppm(not .6) so i am planning on doing 2 tomorrow.the fish are alot more active and actually eating :dance ..anyway, tell me what y'all think.....

oh, and just for the record i was hoping the snails i had would of eaten this dried algea...but they died
 
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Yes, the old rock likely contained a lot of organic matter that is now decaying. Scrubbing it clean will help.

Make sure to feed very lightly--while it's good that they are eating, it's also producing additional ammonia.
 
also can't seem to get my ph balanced..is this part of cycling? been using a buffer. was good last night....it has drooped agian this morning...don't want to over do it with the buffer......any other way to keep this steady. and is their a better way to dissolve this stuff or is it supposed to be chunky..seems like no matter what i do it stays partialy clumpy...Also the buffer i have says it does not go well with high amm..should this be a concern or should I keep using this???
 
The problem is that the biological processes that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate use up the buffers in the water. It's tough to stabilize in a cycling tank, but with fish in there, worth the effort. pH swings are very tough on SW fish--add that into the stress from the ammonia levels, and the fish are in a rough spot.
 
It would be alot of work but, you could take the rock out and scrub it with a tooth brush etc. I'd still wonder if there isn't some large critter rotting away in there . Is there any way at all you could get your fish boarded somewhere until this is over . that would work but, might not be possible. Keep us posted and good luck.
Chris
 
wish there was a place,but there's not....i already took out every piece of base rock that was used before and took a tooth brush to them. Took just about all day. Concerning the live rock, i've pulled them out too to inspect...nothing I can see or smell...As for the amm it seems to be going down. Don't know if it's becase of the water changes, but i checked this morning after the change was at about 4ppm, now it looks to be about 1-2ppm. Thing is my nitrites are still high so i'm hoping the cleaning of the rock(with me stirring things up abit before the change out)has reduce the amm enough for the nitites to start a good rate of consumtion....dunno how this stuff works exactly just yet but that's my guess. Gonna wait till tomorrow to test again and probably change the water again...sorry for being long winded, just whant y'all to hear everything for a good evaluation on this.

thanks
 
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