Cycling Problems

[Zachary S.]

Hello everyone,
I recently started cycling a 29 gallon tank with live sand and one and only nitrifying bacteria, along with ammonia chloride drops. I am on day 5 ( I understand this is very very early) and the bacteria are doing a great job bringing down 2ppm of ammonia, the first day it brought it down to .25 ammonia and the second day (raised it back up to 2ppm) it brought it down to zero. My nitrites were getting really high the second day around 4-5 ppm, so I though that was good meaning the ammonia was being converted to nitrites fast and easy, although the other bacteria hasn’t seemed to be doing a good job with the nitrites. The nitrites are still at 4-5 ppm. So I gave it the next few days without feeding the nitrites ammonia in hope that the levels went down.

It is day five and I measured my parameters:

PH: 8-8.1,
Ammonia: .25ppm,
Nitrites: 5ppm possibly more,
Nitrate: 80ppm.

See this is where I’m confused with my cycle.. I’m just wondering why my nitrites are not going down at all (maybe increasing) but yet there is still a high presence of Nitrate?? Did I do something wrong along the way? Is there anything I should do to get the cycle going again? Reduce the nitrites and nitrates? Will a water change stall the cycle?

please help me as I am new to this, thank you!

 

[Dine]

You can’t do anything wrong here. Just let it be. Ammonia and nitrite will go down. Nitrate will go up. Happens every tank every time. 5 days is very early. Give it time.

 

[Zachary S.]

You can’t do anything wrong here. Just let it be. Ammonia and nitrite will go down. Nitrate will go up. Happens every tank every time. 5 days is very early. Give it time.

Thank you for the reply, so since the nitrates are so high now I’m sure that they will be around the 160 ppm range when it’s done cycling, isn’t that gonna result in a TON of water changes to get rid of? Also should I add more ammonia?

 

[Dine]

Thank you for the reply, so since the nitrates are so high now I’m sure that they will be around the 160 ppm range when it’s done cycling, isn’t that gonna result in a TON of water changes to get rid of? Also should I add more ammonia?

I wouldn’t worry about the nitrates right now. There’s no livestock so you could do a 100% WC in a month before you add anything and remove all of it. Key here is to just let nature run it’s course. You can keep feeding the bacteria or you can let it be. Just keep testing until you see ammonia/nitrites go to 0. Dose ammonia thrn and watch them go back to 0. That’s when you know you’re near the end.

 

[S.Pepper]

Thank you for the reply, so since the nitrates are so high now I’m sure that they will be around the 160 ppm range when it’s done cycling, isn’t that gonna result in a TON of water changes to get rid of? Also should I add more ammonia?

I just finished going thru my first cycle with Dr. Tim's. Just give it time. I wouldn't do a water change until you have cycled. You can add more ammonia, but I wouldn't do it every day.

 

[Zachary S.]

I just finished going thru my first cycle with Dr. Tim's. Just give it time. I wouldn't do a water change until you have cycled. You can add more ammonia, but I wouldn't do it every day.

I wouldn’t worry about the nitrates right now. There’s no livestock so you could do a 100% WC in a month before you add anything and remove all of it. Key here is to just let nature run it’s course. You can keep feeding the bacteria or you can let it be. Just keep testing until you see ammonia/nitrites go to 0. Dose ammonia thrn and watch them go back to 0. That’s when you know you’re near the end.

A 100% WC won’t affect the biological filter???

 

[Zachary S.]

I just finished going thru my first cycle with Dr. Tim's. Just give it time. I wouldn't do a water change until you have cycled. You can add more ammonia, but I wouldn't do it every day.

How long did it take you to cycle and what was in your tank.. any live rocks or sand?

 

[S.Pepper]

How long did it take you to cycle and what was in your tank.. any live rocks or sand?

Dry rock with Caribsea fiji pink live sand. 2 weeks to the day it cycled.

 

[Zachary S.]

Dry rock with Caribsea fiji pink live sand. 2 weeks to the day it cycled.

Okay great, that’s actually exactly what I have. Did you go through any similar problems. How was your levels while you were cycling your tank?

 

[S.Pepper]

Okay great, that’s actually exactly what I have. Did you go through any similar problems. How was your levels while you were cycling your tank?

Nitrites and nitrates were sky high. Well of course I went thru similar problems... it was the first time I cycled a tank. I had the same questions as u have. Just give it time. U have the bacteria in there and they will do their job. It's going on 4 weeks since I started my system and probably won't add livestock until the first of December.

 

[S.Pepper]

Here's a link to my questions about cycling: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-readings.660889/

Brandon was a lot of help.

 

[Quietman]

If you want to do water changes now, very little harm. Just wait until your ammonia is low (although ammonia is cheap and you'll never use it again and it's easy to bring back up). The bacteria building up is not in water column. You may delay the nitrifying bacteria a tad (nitrite to nitrate) but honestly I doubt you'd notice.

I did several WC because I didn't want to deal with sky high nitrates when done nor risk algae. Didn't notice any delay in being fully cycled in 2-3 weeks.

 

[Dine]

A 100% WC won’t affect the biological filter???

No. The Bacteria live in the rocks. Once you have it built up you could do a 100% WC (although you don’t have to) with no problems. I wouldn’t bother doing any WC until 30 days though. Just a waste of salt. Depending where your nitrates are after the cycle you might want to do a large change to remove them. Once there is livestock in the tank you will want to do smaller more regular changes so the end of the cycle is a good opportunity to remove all that nitrate if you want

 

[Zachary S.]

No. The Bacteria live in the rocks. Once you have it built up you could do a 100% WC (although you don’t have to) with no problems. I wouldn’t bother doing any WC until 30 days though. Just a waste of salt. Depending where your nitrates are after the cycle you might want to do a large change to remove them. Once there is livestock in the tank you will want to do smaller more regular changes so the end of the cycle is a good opportunity to remove all that nitrate if you want

Very informative and makes sense, thank you!

 

[Zachary S.]

Nitrites and nitrates were sky high. Well of course I went thru similar problems... it was the first time I cycled a tank. I had the same questions as u have. Just give it time. U have the bacteria in there and they will do their job. It's going on 4 weeks since I started my system and probably won't add livestock until the first of December.

That makes me feel a whole lot better about the process, I will just give it time it wait for things to work out. Thank you for the information @S.Pepper

 

[Zachary S.]

Here's a link to my questions about cycling: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-readings.660889/

Brandon was a lot of help.

Thank you!

 

[Dragon52]

What test kits are you using, if API the ammonia kits is well know to not be accurate with ammonia. it usually says .25 even with none in the water.

 

[Zachary S.]

I am

What test kits are you using, if API the ammonia kits is well know to not be accurate with ammonia. it usually says .25 even with none in the water.

I am using API and yes I have heard that and I believe that has been a happening as well. Tested again tonight after raising it from 0 to 1ppm and it reads .25 ammonia but it is slightly lighter than the card, so I believe that is 0 ammonia.

 

[GregDaKeg]

A 100% WC won’t affect the biological filter???

It wont hurt. The nitrite to nitrate takes forever when cycling. It took my tank almost a month. Then I did a 80% water change, followed up with weekly 10% added 2 clowns after one month QT. I didnt get a diatom bloom until around month 4. Slow and steady. After cycle and water change just ghost feed and wait for new fish in QT.

 

[DanH86]

The presence of nitrite will be throwing off your nitrate result. Just sit and wait; for me it was 41 days before nitrite dropped to 0, it’s much slower than ammonia to drop.