3 rd week Cycling Nirites and Nitrates High

[Oroborous]

Hi,

I am in a 3rd week cycling a 38 gallon aquarium. I used the ammonia dosing fishless method. I also used tap water conditioner and Stability by sachem.

Right now using API Saltwater kit i am reading 0 Ammonia, Hard to determine the color but 2ppm- 5ppm Nirite and Nitrates must be extremely high since the color turns red so above 120ppm. Ammonia gets processed from 2ppm-0ppm in one day.

I did a massive water change, 80% of water then another 80% again the same day so i know this may have been a mistake. Problem is that nirites and nirtates did not drop a bar after the water change. Not sure what to do now.

 

[DraggingTail]

Nitrites should get converted immediately. Have you added any bacteria? Biospira is what I used.

You need an RO\DI unit to save yourself some headaches.

Other than that, from my experience, I would add a shrimp, ammonia or ghost feed the tank until you see some algae growth. Once you see some algae growth, start doing 10% water changes once a week and test your water until your numbers stabilize.

Do you have a light on the tank? Are you using a heater?

 

[ihavecrabs]

That shouldn't be detrimental in any way. Essentially what you are doing during this time is building up the bacteria colony to be able to process Ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate. You may have slowed the growth of bacteria that transfers Nitrite to Nitrate by doing the large water change.

Simple test will be to dose enough for 1ppm ammonia and test to make sure you have 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrite within 24 hours. If so, then you are good to go. After that, you can do water changes to reduce Nitrate. Water changes themselves do not reduce the bacteria colony size as they are located in the sand, rock, glass surface, etc. What it does is removes a % if the food source limiting growth, but if you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, I woudn't be concerned.

After that.. go slow in adding bioloads. worst thing to do is add multiple fish at once.

 

[Oroborous]

Hi,

I am using Seachem stability and this is sates it does have bacteria.

Stability® will rapidly and safely establish the aquarium biofilter in freshwater and marine systems, thereby preventing the #1 cause of fish death: "new tank syndrome". Stability® is formulated specifically for the aquarium and contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. The bacteria employed by Stability® are non-sulfur fixing and will not produce toxic hydrogen sulfide. Stability® is completely harmless to all aquatic organisms as well as aquatic plants, thus there is no danger of over use. Stability® is the culmination of nearly a decade of research and development and represents the current state of the art in natural biological management.

I am using a light, and i using a heater. My temperature is steady at 81 F

 

[Oroborous]

That shouldn't be detrimental in any way. Essentially what you are doing during this time is building up the bacteria colony to be able to process Ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate. You may have slowed the growth of bacteria that transfers Nitrite to Nitrate by doing the large water change.

Simple test will be to dose enough for 1ppm ammonia and test to make sure you have 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrite within 24 hours. If so, then you are good to go. After that, you can do water changes to reduce Nitrate. Water changes themselves do not reduce the bacteria colony size as they are located in the sand, rock, glass surface, etc. What it does is removes a % if the food source limiting growth, but if you have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite, I woudn't be concerned.

After that.. go slow in adding bioloads. worst thing to do is add multiple fish at once.

What i don't understand is the fact that ammonia gets processed rather well. Nirites don't. Nirtates are supposed to be dropped by doing water changes but they don't. I am confused.

 

[ihavecrabs]

Essentially the bacteria colony is too small to process your nitrite fast enough. Give it some time to build up and it will eventually do so.

Check out this BRS video.. it helps explain it much better than I could

 

[speedstar]

Your nitrate test is picking up the nitrite and most likely reading it then very high. Wait till nitrite drops more, otherwise your just wasting your nitrate test kit.

 

[Oroborous]

Ok, So does this mean i am not doomed just yet? Just sit and wait? should i does some ammonia to not stave the bacteria that process it or should i wait until nirites drop?

 

[Oroborous]

Ok, so i may not yet be doomed looking at the responses i am getting. Should i dose a bit of ammonia to not starve the bacteria that process it or should i just wait until nitrites are gone?

 

[DraggingTail]

Ok, so i may not yet be doomed looking at the responses i am getting. Should i dose a bit of ammonia to not starve the bacteria that process it or should i just wait until nitrites are gone?

The bacteria will not die. Just leave it be for week. Test nitrites to see if 0 then repeat. Once they are zero, wait for some algae on rocks. Then start water changes.

Then you can dose ammonia and see if it's 0 after 24 hours.

Once there you can add some clean up crew (CUC). Let sit for another month, testing and 10% changes weekly. Record your readings. Make sure your keeping all your numbers stable.

Then you can add a fish

 

[speedstar]

The bacteria will not die. Just leave it be for week. Test nitrites to see if 0 then repeat. Once they are zero, wait for some algae on rocks. Then start water changes.

Then you can dose ammonia and see if it's 0 after 24 hours.

Once there you can add some clean up crew (CUC). Let sit for another month, testing and 10% changes weekly. Record your readings. Make sure your keeping all your numbers stable.

Then you can add a fish

Thanks for answering as I have never cycled a tank with ammonia to be able to answer.

 

[14 foot reef]

I used Seachem ( Well Aquavitro seed) advanced version of Stability for my 850 gallon reef cycle. Your are exactly on track, do NOT do anything, you'll see at week 4 Nitrites will drop to Zero and your Nitrates will magically be 10 or 15.... @Randy Holmes-Farley has wrote about the nitrate test kits reading false as there are picking up nitrites. This is common. Your nitrates are NOT that high. Mine did the exact same thing. Patience my friend. you'll see the magic happen in the next 7-10 days.

This was Randy's response to my exact issue i "Thought" I was having..... It is likely fine to do, but note that your nitrate may be nowhere near that high. 1.5 ppm nitrite can falsely show on a nitrate kit as 150 ppm nitrate. So you may have a lot less nitrate than you think

 

[Porpoise Hork]

OP I ran into this very same issue on my 75G during it's cycle. Nitrites well over 5 and nitrates off the charts. Nothing seamed to trigger the nitrites to drop to move onto the next stage in the cycle. This went on for nearly three weeks. Then I started dosing Stability and noticed that the nitrites slowly started coming down but still hanging in despite what they should have done. I was looking at the SeaChem forums about this and one of their support reps said to dose with Prime every 48 hours as well when in the Stability method. They said that the addition of Prime converts the nitrites and in some respect nitrates to a more readily digestible form for the bacteria to consume and will rapidly lower it. I did this and my nitrites at a constant 3-4 dropped to 1.5 after 24 hours of dosing Prime with Stability, and Nitrates went from 160+ to 80 during the same time period. After 48 hours and ready to dose Prime again Nitrites were now nearly at zero and nitrates were at 40. A 50% water change and dosed again with Prime and waited 24 hours and tested. Now no Nitrites and nitrates were at 10. After another 2 days and ending the Stability dosing Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 0, Phosphates 0.

 

[Anirban]

Dont do any more water changes. Just wait it will slowly drop. The bacteria needs time to colonise grow and process the nitrites. It will happen but slowly.