Cycle Question: Nitrite Conversion Seems to Have Stalled

[Nick Kohrn]

I started my cycle on July 4th, using MarinePure spheres and Dr. Tim's One & Only. The ammonia spiked and dropped within the first week, but my nitrites have been showing as 5.0 ppm when using my API test kit. They don't seem to be dropping at all.

Is there anything that I should be doing differently, or anything that I should have done differently? I don't remember nitrites ever taking this long in any of my past cycles.

 

[greenhorn reefer]

Nitrite does take a little longer but there could be some other issues. How is the oxygen levels? Also, how high was the ammonia level? What is your water temp? I used the same cycle strategy and occasionally my nitrite will stall. I now make sure to use an air stone, or point the power heads to break the surface tension of the water, the more oxygen, the more bacteria. If you spiked the ammonia too high, you could have poisoned the bacteria as well. I keep the tank around 82f when cycling. The bacteria prefer warmer waters. I hope I helped. Good luck.

 

[tankstudy]

Here are some tips and troubleshooting straight from Dr.Tim's site.

• IMPORTANT – Do not let the ammonia OR nitrite concentration get above 5 ppm.
• If either ammonia or nitrite concentration get above 5 ppm, do water changes to lower the concentration.
• Do not let the pH drop below 7. If it does, do a partial water change to bring the pH back up.
• Do not add ammonia removers to bind the ammonia – overdosing with these products will just increase the cycling time.
• You do not have to add ammonia everyday – the bacteria do not have to be fed every day. Adding ammonia everyday will results in a sky-high nitrite reading and slow the cycling process.

Your nitrites are too high. From my experience, if they exceed 5ppm or reach 5 ppm, your cycle stalls. Do a water change and bring it back down. I would recommend a 50% water change to bring it back down to 2.5 ppm. This usually gets the cycle up and running again.

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Be patient. Nitrite takes longer sometimes. What you are seeing is fairly typical for me when I cycle my quarantine tanks. When I have use natural rock and live rock. I sometimes miss the Nitrite spiking completely. It depends a lot on the setup. Everything is fine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Do you know the kit is working? Does it read zero (or close to it) on new salt water?

 

[Nick Kohrn]

Do you know the kit is working? Does it read zero (or close to it) on new salt water?

It does read 0 ppm for new saltwater.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Maybe the Dr. Tim's didn't provide, in this instance, enough of the appropriate bacteria for nitrite, and if not, it will take more time.

 

[Nick Kohrn]

Maybe the Dr. Tim's didn't provide, in this instance, enough of the appropriate bacteria for nitrite, and if not, it will take more time.

Thanks for the responses! I will just continue to let it run its course and hope that it is able to complete the cycle.
In the meantime, do I need to add any more ammonium chloride for the nitrosomonas to have a food-source?

 

[Frop]

• Do not let the pH drop below 7. If it does, do a partial water change to bring the pH back up.

Typo? 7 is really really low.

 

[Frop]

Sorry I don't know the technical very well but I know on my 10 gallon I used bio-spira as apart of my setup. And on day 12 my levels were basically ammonia@5 nitrite@0 nitrate@20 [email protected]. I added my first fish and he is still alive 60 days later. started with 10.5 lb live rock and about 2" deep live sand sand bed, a t8 bulb, filter with media and bio-spira. Probably fantom fed the tank twice. And I most likely didn't do any water changes.


Idk what your other levels are at but if it was me I'd probably just throw a fish in there. Maybe not a good idea idk exactly but when I added my first fish nitrate of 20 was considered to be the outer acceptable limit.

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

How big is your tank?
How much live/dead/dry rock did you use? Sand? Flow?

The more info you provide the better we can help.

 

[Nick Kohrn]

How big is your tank?
How much live/dead/dry rock did you use? Sand? Flow?

The more info you provide the better we can help.

I have about a quart of MarinePure spheres in the rear chambers of my Innovative Marine 10g. I don't have any rock; just the MarinePure because the surface area is vast enough. I am running bare-bottom currently as it will be a frag tank. Also, I have two VorTech MP10s in there, but they are each set at a max of 20% and anti-synced so that there is always a random flow pattern.

 

[greenhorn reefer]

Btw... The pre diluted solution provided by dr. Tims, that says to add one drop per gallon, will raise your ammonia to 1ppm. That is a perfect amount of ammonia to start your cycle. I wouldn't worry about feeding your bacteria, there will always be a "die off", as they adjust to your bio load. Just make sure to wait at least a week between fish. And for future reference, bio spira, and dr. Tims ammonia, make the best speed cycle combo. I used them to prep my hospital tanks that I just set up two weeks ago.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Thanks for the responses! I will just continue to let it run its course and hope that it is able to complete the cycle.
In the meantime, do I need to add any more ammonium chloride for the nitrosomonas to have a food-source?

Once the ammonia has been added, you don't need to add anymore until the cycle has completed. Adding more will result in a stalled cycle.

 

[greenhorn reefer]

Sorry I don't know the technical very well but I know on my 10 gallon I used bio-spira as apart of my setup. And on day 12 my levels were basically ammonia@5 nitrite@0 nitrate@20 [email protected]. I added my first fish and he is still alive 60 days later. started with 10.5 lb live rock and about 2" deep live sand sand bed, a t8 bulb, filter with media and bio-spira. Probably fantom fed the tank twice. And I most likely didn't do any water changes.


Idk what your other levels are at but if it was me I'd probably just throw a fish in there. Maybe not a good idea idk exactly but when I added my first fish nitrate of 20 was considered to be the outer acceptable limit.

I think that 20 ppm nitrate is tolerable but not ideal,40 ppm is bad but livable and anything over is just cruelty or death, pending on the type of fish. Having that high of a nitrate reading is also going to cause algae issues. I don't doubt that you're fish is fine but sometimes having high levels of these byproducts cause long term health issues and/or lowered immunity.

 

[alyee5]

I started with all dry rock/ sand and used Ace hardware ammonia to cycle my tank. It also stalled on the nitrites- they were above the level measured on the API kit b/c the color was pegged even when I diluted my tank water with fresh water. I did one massive water change to bring levels down but the nitrites still was stuck. I was starting to panic, researching the 101 things folks suggested to do. In the end I waited and waited and then my nitrites went to zero overnight on the 8th week from when I started. I guess that was my first lesson patience in this hobby.

 

[Nick Kohrn]

I started with all dry rock/ sand and used Ace hardware ammonia to cycle my tank. It also stalled on the nitrites- they were above the level measured on the API kit b/c the color was pegged even when I diluted my tank water with fresh water. I did one massive water change to bring levels down but the nitrites still was stuck. I was starting to panic, researching the 101 things folks suggested to do. In the end I waited and waited and then my nitrites went to zero overnight on the 8th week from when I started. I guess that was my first lesson patience in this hobby.

Thanks for the information! I guess I will just keep on waiting and seeing what happens. If it takes more than another month, then I will probably restart the cycle.

 

[recess62]

I started with all dry rock/ sand and used Ace hardware ammonia to cycle my tank. It also stalled on the nitrites- they were above the level measured on the API kit b/c the color was pegged even when I diluted my tank water with fresh water. I did one massive water change to bring levels down but the nitrites still was stuck. I was starting to panic, researching the 101 things folks suggested to do. In the end I waited and waited and then my nitrites went to zero overnight on the 8th week from when I started. I guess that was my first lesson patience in this hobby.

I agree with this. My nitrites stayed high for 7 weeks. I did nothing and eventually they came down. I thought the tank would never cycle. I filled the tank on 6/18and finally had 0 nitrites on 8/8. Be patient and you will be OK

 

[cmcimino]

Any update on this? I'm experiencing something similar.

 

[beaslbob]

IME with a new aquarium the initial nitrite spike can last for weeks and weeks and read 5ppm+ (kit max).

What I found out was that I stopped feeding the fish and about a week or so later over 2 days nitrItes dropped to unmeasurable.

So now when I start a tank I simply don't add food for a week after adding fish. NitrItes spike up to 5ppm+ then down in 3 days during that first week.

Then good news is that once nitrItes have dropped down they stay down during anything near normal operation.


my .02