Nitrate / Nitrites high

[A_Poythress]

Hey guys, I just want to start off by saying I am new to the hobby and seem to be experiencing an issue that I have never seen/read about before. My 28G JBJ has been cycling for over a month now. Parameters spiked, declined, leveled out and now have maxed out my test kit and have never settled down.

Since the first spike I have done one 5G water change and one 10G a few days apart from one another. I tested the water one day after each water change and the nitrate/nitrite never dropped.
And no, my test kit is not expired and yes, it still works. Just to verify this I tested against unused salt water and was able to read 0. I am using a RedSea test kit so I know I am not using anything cheap.

I am not running lights.
I am not feeding.
I have no livestock in the tank.
I used BioSpira to help the cycle.
I have ceramic rings and sponge in the filter chamber (have not added carbon yet)
And have roughly 20lbs of live rock in the tank (that cycled for one week before I began cycling the tank)

Please let me know what I can do to reduce the nitrates/nitrites in this tank. The levels have been maxed for almost two weeks now and have not dropped once.

Thanks!

 

[brandon429]

we have a huge cycling thread that covers your issues, so to condense six pages lol and apply it to your reef its this:

only what ammonia does after 30 days submersion matters, not the other two. the literal answer on how to lower the nitrate is a full water change if you wanted to. having some nitrate vs none is a good idea though, for nutrient balances.

the nitrite we don't even test for. we literally do not care what it reads, as only ammonia and thirty days matters, and you've met half the requirement by your stated run times. the nitrite can be a false reading in that it could be accumulations from the initial cycling period, and wouldn't be there if you did a full water change to remove partial additives etc. starting clean to assess the cycle in a nano is really easy to do, just a huge water change. the larger tanks have it harder as they must filter the water back down to purity depending on how they spike ammonia during their cycle


what did you add to generate ammonia in this cycle was curious

Once you have no ammonia present, you can spike the system with liquid ammonia to 1 ppm then check back in 24 hours.

You need to change all the water first ideally before you do this; when you digest test ammonia, you want what is adhered to the tank surfaces to register the oxidation, not things you've added to the water like the bottle bac. to have any nitrates at all means ammonia got in somehow, can you post pictures of your tank id like to see the live rock details/colors/growths/inclusions etc

its hard to let go of three parameter cycling, that's a staple in our hobby. the reason we moved past that into ammonia-only cycling is because its easy to get total compliance across all reefs when we lessen the testing errors and impacts of multi param work. what ammonia does is so simple...if the tank oxidizes 1 or 2 ppm ammonia within 24 hours, and its been underwater at least 30 days, and the water was changed before the test, then the tank is simply ready to start. large water changes do not retroscale your cycled tank.

 

[A_Poythress]

we have a huge cycling thread that covers your issues, so to condense six pages lol and apply it to your reef its this:

only what ammonia does after 30 days submersion matters, not the other two. the literal answer on how to lower the nitrate is a full water change if you wanted to. having some nitrate vs none is a good idea though, for nutrient balances.

the nitrite we don't even test for. we literally do not care what it reads, as only ammonia and thirty days matters, and you've met half the requirement by your stated run times. the nitrite can be a false reading in that it could be accumulations from the initial cycling period, and wouldn't be there if you did a full water change to remove partial additives etc. starting clean to assess the cycle in a nano is really easy to do, just a huge water change. the larger tanks have it harder as they must filter the water back down to purity depending on how they spike ammonia during their cycle


what did you add to generate ammonia in this cycle was curious

Once you have no ammonia present, you can spike the system with liquid ammonia to 1 ppm then check back in 24 hours.

You need to change all the water first ideally before you do this; when you digest test ammonia, you want what is adhered to the tank surfaces to register the oxidation, not things you've added to the water like the bottle bac. to have any nitrates at all means ammonia got in somehow, can you post pictures of your tank id like to see the live rock details/colors/growths/inclusions etc

its hard to let go of three parameter cycling, that's a staple in our hobby. the reason we moved past that into ammonia-only cycling is because its easy to get total compliance across all reefs when we lessen the testing errors and impacts of multi param work. what ammonia does is so simple...if the tank oxidizes 1 or 2 ppm ammonia within 24 hours, and its been underwater at least 30 days, and the water was changed before the test, then the tank is simply ready to start. large water changes do not retroscale your cycled tank.

Thanks! The amonia has actually read 0 for the past couple of weeks now. And as far as adding something to generator amonia, I haven't even heard of that before [emoji28] so I didn't do that.

I've attached a picture of the tank with rock/water in it. Very simple scape that I wanted. It has places for future firefish to hide as well as some shelf looking portions.

So you're saying I should introduce amonia to see how it bounces back?!

 

[Tahoe61]

Please post the values?

 

[A_Poythress]

Please post the values?

Last test showed the following:

pH: 8.2
kH: 10
Nitrate: 20
Nitrite: 1
Amonia: 0
Salinity: 1.027

 

[Tahoe61]

I would either challenge the tank with pure ammonia as Brandon suggested or I would obtain more bacteria in bottle wait a couple days and test again or you can do both days apart if you still see a detectable nitrite. I am not really concerned about the nitrate level, water change will eventually get the value down and it's not really a tremendously high value. One month is not much time.

Check out the link below for instruction and recommendations.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/cycling-an-aquarium.303/

 

[A_Poythress]

I would either challenge the tank with pure ammonia as Brandon suggested or I would obtain more bacteria in bottle wait a couple days and test again or you can do both days apart if you still see a detectable nitrite. I am not really concerned about the nitrate level, water change will eventually get the value down and it's not really a tremendously high value. One month is not much time.

Check out the link below for instruction and recommendations.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/cycling-an-aquarium.303/

So if I were to add Ammonia to the tank, how much should I add to 28G to bring the Ammonia to 2ppm? I would hate to waste half of my tests on checking to make sure I have put the right amount in.

Also, I ran tests again last night and Nitrate & Nitrite levels have not dropped.
They are staying steady at 1 & 20..

 

[jonneyb]

Add a capfull and test

 

[A_Poythress]

I would either challenge the tank with pure ammonia as Brandon suggested or I would obtain more bacteria in bottle wait a couple days and test again or you can do both days apart if you still see a detectable nitrite. I am not really concerned about the nitrate level, water change will eventually get the value down and it's not really a tremendously high value. One month is not much time.

Check out the link below for instruction and recommendations.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/cycling-an-aquarium.303/

So I'm on day two now. Began with 2.0 ammonia.
Day 1 test = 0.8 ppm
Day 2 test = 0 ppm

Nitrite levels are still 1. Could be higher but the Red Sea kit only reads up to 1! I will be starting over the ammonia cycle by raising it to 2 again and waiting for the drop to 0 to happen in 24 hrs.

With this being said, what happens if my Nitrite levels do not drop? Again, I have done major water changes to the tank and have not seen the slightest drop in Nitrite levels. I am not concerned about Nitrate which is steady at 20.