Nitrogen cycle stalled on Nitrites?

[Oakie12]

Hey everyone. I am currently on day 38 of my tank cycle and have very high nitrite reading on my api test kit. I have cross checked the test with my nano tank so i know its working correctly. The test looks brighter than the 5 ppm color on the chart but i dont find the chart to accurate to begin with.

I started the cycle on my reefer 350 with 50lbs of marco dry rock and 60lbs of carib sea hawaiian black sand. Added a couple frozen fish cubes for the first couple days and noted the ammonia at 2.0ppm. I also dosed a bottle of aquavitro seed in the first week. Within a week my nitrite started slowly climbing but its been imo past 5ppm for atleast 4 weeks. My nitrates are 20ppm as of today too.

Parameters: all with API test kits

Sg. 1.026
PH. 8.0
Ammonia. 0ppm
Nitrite. 5 +ppm?
Nitrate. 20ppm
KH. 12 dKH
Calcium. 520
Phosphates. 0ppm

The question I have is... should i ride it out or should i do a pwc to maybe bring the nitrite back down to readable levels?

I didnt have this problem with my first reef tank cycle so I am a little iffy about messing with anything.

 

[Joeganja]

Photo: marine depot.

 

[laga77]

In the last 6 years I have cycled 8 tanks. All have taken less than 3 weeks. The last one took 9 days and can be viewed here. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/9-day-cycle.284845/ The reason yours is stalled is because there was not enough ammonia available to sustain the bacteria culture. You added a lot of bacteria and that needs a lot of food to continue. At this point you should raise the temp, which will speed up the existing bacteria and add ammonia to bring it up to 2ppm again. You can search the "other" reef site forum for 12 day cycle where I posted day by day history of cycle.

 

[WVReefJunkie]

If you have twenty parts per million of Nitrates, your nitrites should have fallen at some point. Have you experience this?

 

[Oakie12]

In the last 6 years I have cycled 8 tanks. All have taken less than 3 weeks. The last one took 9 days and can be viewed here. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/9-day-cycle.284845/ The reason yours is stalled is because there was not enough ammonia available to sustain the bacteria culture. You added a lot of bacteria and that needs a lot of food to continue. At this point you should raise the temp, which will speed up the existing bacteria and add ammonia to bring it up to 2ppm again. You can search the "other" reef site forum for 12 day cycle where I posted day by day history of cycle.

If i add more ammonia, will that not bump the nitrites up even more though? Im pretty sure that bottle bacteria is a scam, atleast aquavitro seed imo.

 

[Oakie12]

If you have twenty parts per million of Nitrates, your nitrites should have fallen at some point. Have you experience this?

It looks to be 20ppm on the color chart but the nitrite has pretty much just remained bright purple since.

 

[tankstudy]

You'll want to do a water change.

When you hit greater than or equal to 5 ppm nitrites, it stalls the cycle to a very long degree. Start with a 50% water change to see where that drops your nitrites.

Once you can get it under 5 ppm nitrites, leave your tank alone and it will finish the cycle.

At that point, I would recommend dosing a known concentration of ammonia to see how much ammonia your tank can consume in 24 hours. If you do this test, make sure you only dose the tank to 2.0 ppm ammonia to begin with. Do not dose and test to see when the tank reaches 2.0 ppm, this will cause you to overdose and you will hit greater than 5 ppm nitrites. If your known ammonia source says 1 drop per gallon = 2 ppm/gallon, do just that and wait till ammonia and nitrite hit zero before doing anything further.

However, if you don't want to run a digestion test, I would recommend stocking slowly because we don't really know how much bioload your bacteria can actually handle in 24 hours.

 

[CMD2213]

You will eventually hear it later on, if not already... grab some more reliable test kits. Api is not a preferred test kit to alot of reefers.

Milwaukee is popular but many disagree with its accuracy.
Many use the salifert test kits which comes highly recommended by alot of buddies.
Just something to research when you have thousands of dollars you worked for in a tank that is relying on good parameters.

 

[BlueCursor]

+1 on tankstudy. If ammonia gets too high it kills the ammonia consuming bacteria. If the nitrite gets too high it kills the nitrite consuming bacteria. They are two different bacteria species. So you need to get the nitrite down. Don't add any more ammonia at this point. That bacteria is there and did its job.

 

[N4sty T4te]

Hey everyone. I am currently on day 38 of my tank cycle and have very high nitrite reading on my api test kit. I have cross checked the test with my nano tank so i know its working correctly. The test looks brighter than the 5 ppm color on the chart but i dont find the chart to accurate to begin with.

I started the cycle on my reefer 350 with 50lbs of marco dry rock and 60lbs of carib sea hawaiian black sand. Added a couple frozen fish cubes for the first couple days and noted the ammonia at 2.0ppm. I also dosed a bottle of aquavitro seed in the first week. Within a week my nitrite started slowly climbing but its been imo past 5ppm for atleast 4 weeks. My nitrates are 20ppm as of today too.

Parameters: all with API test kits

Sg. 1.026
PH. 8.0
Ammonia. 0ppm
Nitrite. 5 +ppm?
Nitrate. 20ppm
KH. 12 dKH
Calcium. 520
Phosphates. 0ppm

The question I have is... should i ride it out or should i do a pwc to maybe bring the nitrite back down to readable levels?

I didnt have this problem with my first reef tank cycle so I am a little iffy about messing with anything.

Did you cure the Dry Rock? I used Pukani and cured it and my Nitrites lingered for longer than usual, there's usually a lot of dead stuff buried deep inside the rocks. So it can take quite a while to cure.
I Cooked mine with Muriatic Acid then let sit for 3 Weeks in 85 degree water, with 100% water changes 4 times throughout. Scrubbed it, pressure washed it at the car wash. (Which was hilarious because everyone was like what the heck is this kid doing?) and it still produced 10 PPM of nitrates and the nitrites lingered until the 30 day mark.

 

[Oakie12]

You'll want to do a water change.

When you hit greater than or equal to 5 ppm nitrites, it stalls the cycle to a very long degree. Start with a 50% water change to see where that drops your nitrites.

Once you can get it under 5 ppm nitrites, leave your tank alone and it will finish the cycle.

At that point, I would recommend dosing a known concentration of ammonia to see how much ammonia your tank can consume in 24 hours. If you do this test, make sure you only dose the tank to 2.0 ppm ammonia to begin with. Do not dose and test to see when the tank reaches 2.0 ppm, this will cause you to overdose and you will hit greater than 5 ppm nitrites. If your known ammonia source says 1 drop per gallon = 2 ppm/gallon, do just that and wait till ammonia and nitrite hit zero before doing anything further.

However, if you don't want to run a digestion test, I would recommend stocking slowly because we don't really know how much bioload your bacteria can actually handle in 24 hours.

Thanks for the advice. Ill try to get a water change done this weekend and see where the params sit after that.

 

[Oakie12]

You will eventually hear it later on, if not already... grab some more reliable test kits. Api is not a preferred test kit to alot of reefers.

Milwaukee is popular but many disagree with its accuracy.
Many use the salifert test kits which comes highly recommended by alot of buddies.
Just something to research when you have thousands of dollars you worked for in a tank that is relying on good parameters.

I still have the api from last year when i started my first tank.. hate wasting stuff so ive still been using them, is salifert any good? Have them at my lfs.

 

[Oakie12]

Did you cure the Dry Rock? I used Pukani and cured it and my Nitrites lingered for longer than usual, there's usually a lot of dead stuff buried deep inside the rocks. So it can take quite a while to cure.
I Cooked mine with Muriatic Acid then let sit for 3 Weeks in 85 degree water, with 100% water changes 4 times throughout. Scrubbed it, pressure washed it at the car wash. (Which was hilarious because everyone was like what the heck is this kid doing?) and it still produced 10 PPM of nitrates and the nitrites lingered until the 30 day mark.

I did not cure my marco rock at all. I rinsed it good then threw it in the tank. I got the tank and equipment and rock all on the same weekend and couldnt bare looking at it all idle so i filled her up right away.. probably a big mistake

 

[Oakie12]

I know patience is key but i really want to transfer everything from my 15 gallon column over to my reefer.

 

[Oakie12]

Hard staring at this every day

 

[bazzar]

I'm only new to this, but for what it's worth I had the same situation. It was frustrating so I decided to put in a bottle of ATM Colony. Ammonia came down rapidly, nitrites still very high after 4 days then rapidly came down to zero by day 7. I put in 4 Chromis and they've been doing very well so far. One of them didn't look as healthy as the rest when I got it home from the LFS but they are all looking great now. I slightly reduced the salinity also as I only had a few CUC in the tank, as I heard this allows the fishes osmotic system to take it easy and put more energy into the immune and other bodily systems. Anyway I'm still learning a lot but it seemed to work for me. Just enjoying the ugly stage of my new tank but loving watching the fish, CUC and especially the development of the live rock. Good luck

 

[CMD2213]

I still have the api from last year when i started my first tank.. hate wasting stuff so ive still been using them, is salifert any good? Have them at my lfs.

I like salifert buy it on amazon way cheaper than lfs of you have prime.

 

[Oakie12]

I'm only new to this, but for what it's worth I had the same situation. It was frustrating so I decided to put in a bottle of ATM Colony. Ammonia came down rapidly, nitrites still very high after 4 days then rapidly came down to zero by day 7. I put in 4 Chromis and they've been doing very well so far. One of them didn't look as healthy as the rest when I got it home from the LFS but they are all looking great now. I slightly reduced the salinity also as I only had a few CUC in the tank, as I heard this allows the fishes osmotic system to take it easy and put more energy into the immune and other bodily systems. Anyway I'm still learning a lot but it seemed to work for me. Just enjoying the ugly stage of my new tank but loving watching the fish, CUC and especially the development of the live rock. Good luck

Were you high on ammonia or nitrites when you dosed the atm colony? Did you throw the fish in right after dosing or wait a day or 2?

 

[bazzar]

Ammonia was back down to zero, nitrites were still crazy high and seemed stuck. Put the colony in but didn't want to put fish straight in due to high nitrite levels, waited 4 days and then emailed ATM who's customer service was amazing. They said put fish straight in but I think that's cos they bank on you putting fish in before any levels can go high. Obviously my nitrite was already high due to incomplete cycle. But the colony relies on fish to feed the added colony. I tested again on day five after adding and saw a rapid decrease in nitrite, so added the fish then to keep the ammonia part of the colony going knowing the nitrite "roadblock" had been passed. All been good since, I had a bacteria bloom for a day or so, then diatoms but not much, I'm now on the green algae stage so limiting the light. I'm loving watching how this ecosystem develops and the natural science behind it.

 

[Oakie12]

Ammonia was back down to zero, nitrites were still crazy high and seemed stuck. Put the colony in but didn't want to put fish straight in due to high nitrite levels, waited 4 days and then emailed ATM who's customer service was amazing. They said put fish straight in but I think that's cos they bank on you putting fish in before any levels can go high. Obviously my nitrite was already high due to incomplete cycle. But the colony relies on fish to feed the added colony. I tested again on day five after adding and saw a rapid decrease in nitrite, so added the fish then to keep the ammonia part of the colony going knowing the nitrite "roadblock" had been passed. All been good since, I had a bacteria bloom for a day or so, then diatoms but not much, I'm now on the green algae stage so limiting the light. I'm loving watching how this ecosystem develops and the natural science behind it.

Thanks alot for the info. I put the atm colony in today. Im gonna head to the lfs tomorrow. Hopefully the nitrites will go down. If i see the fish sint looking good i can put him in my smaller tank till everythingbis sorted.