Is this possible?

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wildgator25

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Jun 6, 2004
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My tank has been processing 2.5-5ppm of ammonia for the past two weeks and nitrites have remained around 0-.5ppm. Nitrates though never got over 10ppm............... UNTILLLLLLLLLLLL..............
today! Did a 80-90% water change and added fresh water to the tank. Thinking that by tomorrow I will be able to add some fish since the fishless cycle is finally over (thank God), this has thrown me for a loop. The ammonia reads .5ppm, which is good. pH is about 6.8, good too. Now this doesn't make sense... nitrIte is 5ppm, and nitrAtes are about 15ppm. Now how is that possible????? I dechlorinated the water after I put it in the tank, and it has been running for about 5 hours now. I have yet to read anywhere that this has happened to anyone, and I don't know how nitrite and nitrate have risen by adding fresh water and dechlorinator. Can someone help me??
By the way, this is a 37 gallon, and I'm doing a FISHLESS cycle.
 
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Never done a fishless cycle myself but it sounds to me like the Ammonia eating bacteria have finally taken hold because you're getting low readings for ammonia.

The byproduct of that part of the cycle is Nitrite. You weren't seeeing any before because there wasn't much being produced.

Now your ammonia should stay at 0 or close to it and the Nitrite will spike while Nitrate will remain low because the Nitrite eating bacteria are establishing their colony.

Once that is done you should see Ammonia and Nitrite levels of 0 and Nitrate will start to rise which you control with water changes.

At least that's what i've gleaned from reading posts here about cycling in general.

So the bottom line is what's happening in your tank is supposed to be happening. Cycle isn't quite done yet.
 
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Well, the only problem with that is that I've allready been throught that stage. The nitrItes had at one time spiked to above 5ppm, and then they started disappearing just like the ammonia did after 24 hours. However, as I've posted before about the nitrAtes, the nitrAtes never got above 5-10ppm. That was until I did the water change yesterday. That throws a serious curve in the fishless cycle step by step instructions. I've checked my tap water and there are no nitrItes or nitrAtes in plain tap water. I went ahead and added ammonia to the tank this morning and I guess I will check it tomorrow morning and hope that I don't have to go through this cycle again. I need some help with this if there's someone who's had this problem before???
 
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