fishless cycling issues

[Meddle6]

I'm starting a 30 gallon tank using a 10% ammonium hydroxide solution. I seeded a fluval 204 initially to start nitrification. Everything started out great and I thought I was done, so I did a 90% water change and dropped to a maintenance dose of ammonia. Bacteria readily consume this dose, but they will not consume the nitrites. Meanwhile, nitrates rise as expected.

My understanding of the nitrogen cycle has always been that bacteria eat the ammonia and the byproduct is nitrites. Another form of bacteria eat those and produce nitrates, right? So why do my nitrites remain constant while nitrates rise. What are the nitrate producing bacteria eating?

Any thoughts?

 

[rrkss]

Probably your Nitrite eaters are as strong as your ammonia eaters at the moment. As soon as their population outnumbers the ammonia eater population, the Nitrites will crash. Happened to me where my Nitrites fell from 20 to 2 in one night. When I added the ammonia it jumped back up to 5 before going down to 0.

 

[IceH2O]

Why are you using a 10% ammonium hydroxide solution?

 

[rrkss]

10% Ammonium Hydroxide is a little bit stronger than normal household ammonia but will do the trick. It just means that he has to dose lower than the average fishless cycler but it won't effect his results.

 

[daveedka]

Probably your Nitrite eaters are as strong as your ammonia eaters at the moment. As soon as their population outnumbers the ammonia eater population, the Nitrites will crash. Happened to me where my Nitrites fell from 20 to 2 in one night. When I added the ammonia it jumped back up to 5 before going down to 0.

This is the most likely scenario. The Nitrite eaters are there but not at a quantity able to consume all nitrite. Since the ammonia eater continue production of nitrites, they replenish themselves as fast as they are consumed and seemingly hold steady.

What did you use for a seed?


Dave

 

[EcoPit]

You must have some bacteria eating nitrites or your nitrates wouldn't be increasing. The nitrite eaters take a while to build up. It sounds like you are on the right track though.