Cycle stalled? Nitrites not going down.

Aezeeazil · May 14, 2020

Hi reefers,
Would like your advice and experience in cycling a tank.

Rocks: caribsea shapes
Substrate: caribsea Fiji pink
Bacteria source aquaforest bio s
Ammonia source: Dr Tim ammonium chloride
Cycle started: 15/04
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0.5
Nitrate 100
Test kits are all salifert.

Basicakky I started dosing AF bio s for 2 weeks and ammonia as instructed.

Since then I've stop dosing bac and ammonia.

Nitrite sticked at 0.50pm for about a week and is not going down.
What do 8 do now?

A water change to reduce the nitrate? Which later cause the nitrite to drop? Or do I wait it out?

BTW I'm running my skimmer and pulling out some thick yellowish gunk.
White biofilm on the tank and have scraped it off.

Water is abit yellowish and I've went thru algae bloom recently

No signs of diatoms or gha.
Hwlot. His poor soul out please

Birddog61 · May 14, 2020

Get a new nitrite test kit. ,, at 100 ppm nitrate you are converting nitrites into nitrates. And yes a water change is in order.

Aezeeazil · May 14, 2020

I bought 2 salifert nitrite test kit in case the first is a dud.
Still registered at 0.5ppm

brandon429 · May 14, 2020

All you do is change out the wastewater and begin you are cycled

find a cycling chart that would disagree based on time

the test kits above report general ranges only

but if you had seneye for ammonia it would show thousandths ppm, you’re set. The other two params dont matter in updated cycle science

what your wastewater reads doesn’t matter. Change water, begin, add some life and things run normally

also interesting in your description: the point of cycling is to lay down bioslicks. Anytime life has had a chance to form a pigment, a smear or a presence in a reef you didnt originally add there, that's a visual verifier of being cycled. nitrification bacteria will always get there first, primary adherents.