Nitrogen cycle help

[Username177013]

Hello everyone, I'm trying to decide whether or not I should add ammonia and nitrifying bacteria into my tank. This is my third week into the nitrogen cycle and today my results are
Ammonia: 0.6
Nitrite:0.5
Nitrate:10
PH:8

 

[Username177013]

I may have stalled my cycle at the beginning.

 

[brandon429]

no its likely already done because 17 days is longer than a cycling chart shows ammonia to take to become under control. what kind of bottle bac did you use

literally not any cycling charts have a rise back up after day 10-12 for this reason, its nearly universal in consistency/at least on earth ~

did you use live rock/pics

I cannot recall the last time we deemed a 17 day system unable to control ammonia verified so can't wait to see details here.

 

[Username177013]

no its already done. what kind of bottle bac did you use

they all say on the label how many days it takes to work, and all are done by week 3

I used microbacter START XLM. I dont think I'm done with the nitrogen cycle just yet. In the beginning I added a bit too much ammonia and read 6.1+ppm on the 3rd day. After about a week it lowered itself to 2.4. Then after a couple of days it lowered itself to 0.6 ammonia. I dont even have any nitrites or nitrates yet.

 

[brandon429]

your test kits though

if you google them, whichever brand they are and put 'misread' after the name brand in the search you'll see how they can be rough to use sometimes.

whats missing from those search returns are seneye misreads. that's the good gear.

how long are the directions on microbacter/ 10 days still?

 

[brandon429]

*most test kits though can still be used to cycle effectively they just need to be ran a different way

the formula that works across brands is to watch for ammonia going down within the stated timeframe on the bottle. if you saw ammonia go down from a higher setpoint since the beginning, its done. the hard zero reading is where most non digital tests mess up and where all stuck cycle posts originate.

you may be concerned having not added feed.


some still got in, when the cycling charts were written that was before bottle bac was for sale.

nature provides ample feed, these are open-topped water magnets for grime in a home

given the # of days from a cycling chart met here we can intuit your actual ammonia standing. nitrite no longer factors in marine cycling its been booted out recently/re chem forum posts on it. nitrate is for algae tuning, heck some kits show zero nitrate when another kit shows fifty ppm (comparison threads show)

if you want to verify squirt in a little ammonium chloride only enough to move the ammonia test barely up barely one increment darker, check tomorrow itll be down. likely by tonite.

 

[Username177013]

no its likely already done because 17 days is longer than a cycling chart shows ammonia to take to become under control. what kind of bottle bac did you use

literally not any cycling charts have a rise back up after day 10-12 for this reason, its nearly universal in consistency/at least on earth ~

did you use live rock/pics

I cannot recall the last time we deemed a 17 day system unable to control ammonia verified so can't wait to see details here.

Ok but I haven't seen any nitrites or nitrates in my test so far. I only added ammonia once in all three weeks of cycling.

 

[brandon429]

just edited in a part about them above. its only ammonia we watch nowadays

we are dealing with test kits that nearly always misreport, so reading ammonia by its movement is how we fix up that problem and omitting nitrite and nitrate altogether due to their chemically neutral presence in marine cycles means we only have to wrestle one guess kit into barely working.

routinely there will be posts that pop up that show one brand of test for ammonia or nitrate benched against another, and those are wildly different readings commonly.

when reading those, it dawned on me everyone accepts a cycling post's readings as 100% factual and cannot vary, ever, not ever

a universal rule about cycles has been preventing pretty much everyone from killing their initial bioload even though their reported numbers are way off, and that rule of #days underwater was known by the founding forefathers who wrote cycling charts. x y axis based on time charts.

if cycles stalled, we'd have cycle charts that looked differently site to site.

I bet your cycle is totally done post pics of the tank they always have unspoken details

 

[Uncle99]

That’s not what you posted.
You posted a level for nitrate and nitrite.
If your concerned, just change out some water.
Microbacter.....3 weeks...your done