New tank, Cycling question

[hsn izd]

hi guys
sorry I'm a newbie here but from my experience, your ammonia need to be lower it should be around zero
i myself used zeolite for about a month in my tank to remove ammonia it helped a lot
your nitrite is too much for a new aquarium in my opinion
the best thing that my lfs helped me to use to reduce nitrite and phosphate in my tank was carbon dosing
i do it every day and after six months my new tank has 0.0 nitrite and 0.03 phosphate as i did check last week
i wish it helps you
good luck

 

[Azedenkae]

I came to this conclusion because of my tank being a nano one. I spelled the effects of ammonia wrong. My fish were only active when I was dosing prime until my tank cycled I have gone through 3 bottles of beneficial bacteria to cycle my tank at the end fritz turbo start did the job. I also did the same with just doing weekly water changes, but every time I did my male clownfish would just lay on the sand and not move much every time I avoided using prime. Clownfish were captive bred. My ammonia and nitrite never went up 1ppm. Oh and after 2 weeks with 0.5 nitrite my damsel dies with 25 nitrate. All of these fishes were bought through live aquaria. Even future fishes do there might be some shipping stress but seeing my male being active after dosing prime or the tank completely cycled I cannot explain.

Okay, that makes more sense, yes ammonia was likely the issue then until you dosed Prime.

Now that you started mentioning more of what transpired, there is also so many additional factors that likely contributed to the deaths, which makes nitrite even less likely to have been the culprit of the deaths by the way.

For example, what you are doing is fish-in cycling, which is not something I would recommend, but is not something that does not work so it is entirely your choice and acceptable.

But op is doing fishless cycling, so that's very, very different, with the goal being that post-cycling there should be no ammonia and thus Prime is not necessary.

 

[melonheadorion]

i will add my 2 cents in on the ammonia and nitrites thing here to give a little more info to the conversation.

from the point that my tank cycled, ammonia has ALWAYS been at .20 or .25 depending on what test kit you use, so i feel that my readings are accurate since both of my test kits, as well as the LFS kit shows the same outcome. i currently have 7 fish, 2 snails, and a shrimp. there have been no deaths, or any eratic fish behavior that would indicate that they are experiencing stress. on the nitrite side, i have been at 0 since it cycled, but if ammonia is more dangerous to fish than nitrite, even if nitrite was registered at all, i would suspect that it would not effect the fish any more than the .25 that ammonia registers already.

is it best to have no ammonia. i would say yes. however, having a small amount register is not going to kill fish, based on my own experience anyway

 

[GazS]

Thanks for your replies and help.

I did a 50% water change yesterday. This morning the ammonia was 0 but nitrite still 0.4 and shockingly nitrate still 100.

PH	NH3	NO2	Nitrate	KH / Alk	Temp	Salinity
8.15	0	0.4	100		26c	1.025/33

Gonna leave it be for a couple of days and see what happens. Concerned about 100 nirate and a 50% water change, but as one of you mentioned maybe the NO2 in the tank is affecting the NO3 test.

 

[GazS]

Interesting afternoon for me.

I got a nasty shock from the tank when adjusting the flow nozzle. Got out the multimeter and the current was 6microamps. It was coming from aqua medic titanium heater. Unplugged that and put in the eheim I had spare.

I live in eu so different ground protectors than states, I do have it plugged into a grounded extension and outlet. Probably will get a grounding probe tomorrow as well.

 

[Floyd-]

Just FYI im going through the same on my 60gallon new setup. My nitrate is 100+ PPM after a 50% water change yesterday also. I think the NO2 is still high but I dont have a tester for that. Im going to the store today and getting a kit (Probably API becuase thats all they have) to test NO2. My guess its not 0 and its giving false readings on the NO3. Mine is as bright pink as yours!

 

[GazS]

Just FYI im going through the same on my 60gallon new setup. My nitrate is 100+ PPM after a 50% water change yesterday also. I think the NO2 is still high but I dont have a tester for that. Im going to the store today and getting a kit (Probably API becuase thats all they have) to test NO2. My guess its not 0 and its giving false readings on the NO3. Mine is as bright pink as yours!

Hi Floyd,

my nitrites and ammonia are now 0, I dosed with ammonia and 24 hours later 0 readings again.

obviously nitrates are super high so I’m now doing a 90% water change before adding cuc this week and 2 clowns the week after!
So hang on in there!

 

[Floyd-]

Why are these high water changes necessary? even 50% was fairly aggressive IMO. Most of the time it should only be about 20%. What are you getting for CUC? I want some little shrimps but I dont want to drop them in and kill them before its ready.

 

[Azedenkae]

Why are these high water changes necessary? even 50% was fairly aggressive IMO. Most of the time it should only be about 20%. What are you getting for CUC? I want some little shrimps but I dont want to drop them in and kill them before its ready.

Aggressive or not depends on what you have in the tank and whether the big water changes affect them versus what benefits it could bring.

If nitrates register super high and nitrite registers 0, and one really wants to reduce it while not having anything in the tank that would be significantly harmed by a big water change, a big water change is the way to go. For example, if one would do 20% water changes to get to the same point as what would occur after a 90% water changes, that'd take more than 10 water changes, or in other words changing out more than 200% of the water in total.

That is a massive unnecessary waste of water.

 

[GazS]

Why are these high water changes necessary? even 50% was fairly aggressive IMO. Most of the time it should only be about 20%. What are you getting for CUC? I want some little shrimps but I dont want to drop them in and kill them before its ready.

As Azedenkae mentioned, I have super high nitrates, before I put in any livestock I wanted to get rid of the nitrate. Easiest way is the 90% change and then it will just be weekly 10% and a nano skimmer.

For cuc I’m open to suggestions, for now I’m considering 2 trochus and 2 nassarius. I’d like to add hermits and a peppermint shrimp later.