fishless cycling failing???

[ariston]

I just don't understand why I have high levels of both Nitrites and Nitrates and for so long - I could understand if I had high Nitrites and no Nitrates - I would understand that the Nitrifying bacteria hadn't developed yet, but presumably they have developed and are converting it into Nitrate. But why hasn't the Nitites fallen to 0 after having high Nitrates for weeks now - Help!!!

Hi homer, I'm new at this myself, but my guess is that you do have nitrite-eating bacteria... just not enough of it to eat ALL the nitrites that your ammonia-eaters are producing. When you say 1.6+ for nitrites, is that because your test kit maxes out at 1.6? If so, then your nitrites could be very, very high, and you could already have a lot of nitrite-eaters producing a lot of nitrate, but just not (yet) enough nitrite-eaters to bring the nitrites back to zero.

From what I understand, the bacteria growth is exponential, so you can see little or no progress for a long time, and then all of the sudden, WHAM, big results. So you might still be within the normal range of things; I don't think 4-6 weeks for a cycle would be unusual. But if you'd like to fiddle with things and/or test things -- that makes me feel better, since I'm doing something -- a few other things that I think might have an impact are temperature, pH, and hardness.

 

[homerHart]

Thanks for the reply.
The test for Nitrites does go higher - the colour chart is a bit difficult as the colour does not exactly match the tones of the water test result - it just looks as if it's between 1.6 and the next one up which I think is something like 3 something.
Will keep plodding along in the hope that one day I get 0 Nitrites - I will be ecstatic when it happens!!!! :dance:

 

[Neo Sithlord]

Homer try a big water change reseed with 2-3ppm ammonia and then test in a day or so. 100 ppm nitrate is pretty high. I don't think anything will get hurt in the cycle process if you bring that down to say 10-20 ppm. I'm more concerned that a nitrate build up like that may lead to other problems in a planted tank like algea blooms and what not. When I tried a fishless cycle I had high readings in nitrates on top of high nitrites but I was to afraid of ruining it all by doing a water change so the other readings were mesurable. That's where I gave up. Might be differnt in your tank but I think if the readings are low and you reseed ammonia you can see how fast the various stages are working. You may even be at the end of it.
-Neo Sithlord

 

[homerHart]

As suggested - 90% water change done - added ammonia until it registered between 2-5ppm.
Tested Nitrites and Nitrates after water change and still both seem to be high - I guess they must have been extremely high before - I think the trouble is the test kits I have (Nutrafin - liquid ones) particularly the Nitrate and Nitrite tests - the colour chart does not really look anything like the colour of the liquid I end up with - the liquid is far brighter than the paper chart so I have been trying to match the rough tone of the liquid as the actual colour is quite different to the chart - the Ammonia and PH ones are very easy and the liquid matches perfectly with the chart.
I will keep trying - if I get 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrite in the near future you will all be the first to know. Cheers, Homer :bday: