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Happy to Say Some Nitrites :) - Cycling Stuff

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  equatics 
#1 ·


Got to excited not to put it up here. :) The middle (Nitrites) is finally no longer baby blue. I removed my fish from the tank as I'm one of those 'dumb' in-fish cyclers that did not know it before. Although the tank they were moved into is not cycled either the goal is to put them back into their primary tank in the near future as the cycle works on that delicious ammonia.

To encourage good growth of the nitrite bacterias should I continue to try and keep ammonia up? And then if I do so if it takes only 24 hours for it to return to 0 is that the time to put the good ole fish back home? Also should any water changes/cleaning occur during this time? I have three very small anubias ferns in the tank. One of which seems to have a lot of algea on it the others are clean as ever.

Thanks.
 
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#2 ·
Very nice. Yes, you want to keep ammonia up until you see some Nitrates come on. You don't want to raise your ammonia level though, only maintain it.

Once you see Nitrates, keep watch of the Ammonia and Nitrites. I'm quite sure you stop feeding the tank at this point. Once you have 0ppm of Ammonia and 0ppm of Nitrites you will see a spike in Nitrates. You want to do a good 50% water change once you see the 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm Nitrites so you can reduce the Nitrate levels. At that point just keep watch of your nitrates and make sure it stays below 20ppm. You can do water changes do reduce the Nitrate levels. after the water change, wait 24 hours and check all your parameters. If ammonia and nitrite are at 0pp and Nitrates are stable than you can put a few fish in.

Don't put too many fish in at once or you will crash the tank and it will go into a mini cycle.

Good luck!
 
#3 ·
Do not test for NITRATES until you see the NITRITE spike occurring, with the presence of NITRITE it will make the NITRATE test give a false reading.

How are you keeping the ammonia that high? Once you see the ammonia drop off and the NITRITE spike occur, if you are dosing the tank with pure ammonia, dose the initial dose of pure ammonia you started off with..if in 24 hours all the ammonia is converted into Nitrite and then Nitrate, perform a massive waterchange (80%) to bring the Nitrate level down and you are good to go. With that amount of Ammonia, assuming you are dosing, once the tank finishes cycling there should be no problem adding all the fish at once. The good bacteria will be in a large enough quantity to be able to handle the bioload, it is way more than ever will be created by "feeding" the tank with food or fish in cycling.
 
#4 ·
Do not test for NITRATES until you see the NITRITE spike occurring, with the presence of NITRITE it will make the NITRATE test give a false reading.
Why is that so? It makes sense if the test isn't reliable but API has been decently accurate when reading lower numbers of Nitrate levels. Anything above 20ppm it starts to bug out for me.
 
#5 ·
The bacteria that convert ammonia to Nitrite appear before the bacteria that convert Nitrite to Nitrate..until you have a measureable amount of Nitrite, there will be little to no bacteria to convert the Nitrite to Nitrate meaning the test is virtually worthless.
 
#6 ·
And I hit "New Thread" for my post. Apologies for hijacking on and thanks for the info though. My most humble apologies!

That is actually probably just the slow increase after I took fish out of the tank (for ammonia being that high). Otherwise I'm doing nothing extra.
 
#7 ·
And I hit "New Thread" for my post. Apologies for hijacking on and thanks for the info though. My most humble apologies!

That is actually probably just the slow increase after I took fish out of the tank (for ammonia being that high). Otherwise I'm doing nothing extra.
Came across this and moved the posts to start a new thread. Byron.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Can I put in my 2 cents? First of all, with the fish in another tank, keep the ammonia low there so they can survive, by doing water changes as much as necessary. And in your primary tank, the nitrogen cycle must be fed ammonia. You can do this by using pure ammonia or with a very small amount of fish food every day until you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite and some nitrate.

Right now, I'm seeing in your test results that you have some nitrite, which is good at this point in the cycling process, and lots of ammonia. This means that ammonia is just a little past peak (by the amount of the nitrite) and bacteria have developed and started to convert it to nitrite. Ammonia will go down to 0 and nitrites will peak as bacteria develop to convert it to nitrate. As I said before, when ammonia and nitrites are 0 and you're showing nitrates, the cycle has completed and you can do a 50% water change to lower the nitrate level. From what I understand, water changes prior to this point will slow the cycle's completion and it will take longer, because the high levels of ammonia and then nitrite activate the bacterias' growth. Looks like your tank is doing normally.

Here's a link to a graphic chart of the Nitrogen Cycle: http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-articles/graphic-nitrogen-cycle-101698/

I have written little more than the basics. Looking at the chart may help you understand how things fit together. Keep at it!

Steven
 
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