Cycling Help!!!!

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 1, 2018

Tank has been cycling for 3 weeks (400L) (105g) and I have used Dr Tim's and using the ammonium chloride solution. My readings are 0 amonnia 5ppm Nitrite and 20ppm Nitrate my ammonia drops within 24hrs but nitrite does not drop at all. Carried out a 50% water change which dropped nitrite to 2ppm but it's has gone back up to 5 within 2 days.

Should I still add ammonia? It seems to be converting but nitrite stays high. What should i be doing? I used dry rock and dry sand.

Diatoms have covered the tank also.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 1, 2018

Also there is 40kg of rock in the tank

Coronus · Sep 1, 2018

Let it ride. Do not do anything. Do not do water changes. Nitrite will drop on its own but it takes time. It could take 6 weeks. I have had a tank take that long. Just be patient. Reduce your lighting, you dont need it right now. That will help with the diatoms.
Change out 20% once the cycle is complete.

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 1, 2018

Coronus said:
Let it ride. Do not do anything. Do not do water changes. Nitrite will drop on its own but it takes time. It could take 6 weeks. I have had a tank take that long. Just be patient. Reduce your lighting, you dont need it right now. That will help with the diatoms.
Change out 20% once the cycle is complete.

Ok no worries thanks. Have done this a few times on other tanks but never this long or high readings. Will let it ride

Ron Reefman · Sep 1, 2018

What Coronus said is good info.

As for the diatom issue, any new tank is going to go through this bloom, no matter how experienced the builder is! I use leds and I used only the blue channels and the diatoms went away after a 3 to 5 days. But the corals stay happy and open in the blue light. HOWEVER, when I turned the white channel back on the diatoms came back. I did the light cycle again and the same thing happened.

IMHO, you might as well leave the lights on and live with the diatom bloom while you wait for the tank to finish converting the nitrite to nitrate. Turning the lights off now will kill the diatoms, but when you turn them back on, they will bloom again. There is food for them in the tank and until they bloom and remove all or most of the food, you will have them. I think you just leave the lights on and let the bloom run it's course as well. It may take a few weeks.

Good luck and have fun with the new set up.

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 1, 2018

Ron Reefman said:
What Coronus said is good info.

As for the diatom issue, any new tank is going to go through this bloom, no matter how experienced the builder is! I use leds and I used only the blue channels and the diatoms went away after a 3 to 5 days. But the corals stay happy and open in the blue light. HOWEVER, when I turned the white channel back on the diatoms came back. I did the light cycle again and the same thing happened.

IMHO, you might as well leave the lights on and live with the diatom bloom while you wait for the tank to finish converting the nitrite to nitrate. Turning the lights off now will kill the diatoms, but when you turn them back on, they will bloom again. There is food for them in the tank and until they bloom and remove all or most of the food, you will have them. I think you just leave the lights on and let the bloom run it's course as well. It may take a few weeks.

Good luck and have fun with the new set up.

Thanks for the reply and your input.

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 2, 2018

Mr New Saltwater said:
Ok no worries thanks. Have done this a few times on other tanks but never this long or high readings. Will let it ride

Would not having ammonia in the tank cause the ammonia feeding bacteria to die off? Should I at least ghost feed?

Ron Reefman · Sep 2, 2018

Mr New Saltwater said:
Would not having ammonia in the tank cause the ammonia feeding bacteria to die off? Should I at least ghost feed?

Good question!

I think it would die off, but I don't have any idea how long that might take. I mean most of us don't overfeed (speak for yourself Ron ;Nailbiting) or have dead and rotting 'stuff' in our tanks to up the ammonia levels. But we do have some animals creating detritus. If I was you, I would either add a very small amount of pure ammonia (watch out for surfactants in store bought ammonia) or ghost feed a little. Adding ammonia makes it easy to test how much you add by testing just a few minutes after you add it, and than seeing how fast it is processed into nitrite.

Mr New Saltwater · Sep 2, 2018

Ron Reefman said:
Good question!

I think it would die off, but I don't have any idea how long that might take. I mean most of us don't overfeed (speak for yourself Ron ;Nailbiting) or have dead and rotting 'stuff' in our tanks to up the ammonia levels. But we do have some animals creating detritus. If I was you, I would either add a very small amount of pure ammonia (watch out for surfactants in store bought ammonia) or ghost feed a little. Adding ammonia makes it easy to test how much you add by testing just a few minutes after you add it, and than seeing how fast it is processed into nitrite.

Yeah I have a bottle of Dr Tim's ammonium chloride. I will add maybe enough to add 1ppm and see how it goes.