Tank Cycle

[ilott]

Hey,
I’ve recently added rock, sand, water etc to my new tank, i’ve also added about 1 litre of FritzZyme9 and an adequite amount of ammonia to the tank and sump. I’ve been checking my water parameters over the past week to see where they are and when the tank will be ready for my old tank’s inhabitants, only I can’t tell the reading of my Nitrite, I don’t know if this is because it’s too high? I’ve read that too high nitrite can stump the cycle and i’m just so excited to rehome my fish.

 

[Mattg023]

Give it more time. Ammonia is getting lower, and nitrite is Pretty high. When nitrite is light blue you’ll know it’s 0, and then you’re good to go.

 

[ilott]

I know but is the nitrite toooo high? Like will that stump the cycle?

 

[ichthyogeek]

A handy trick if you can't tell if a reading is too high, is to do a one fold dilution. Take the water you have, and add an equivalent amount of freshly mixed water to the tube, then reduce down to the required volume. Then, whatever result you get, you double that.

Example: I take out 2.5 mL of tank water, and add in 2.5 mL of freshly mixed saltwater (equivalent of about 25 drops from a standard 3 mL pipette). I then do the test according to instructions. Whatever results I get, I double. If it's 3.0 ppm, then I know I have 6.0 ppm nitrite, etc.

If it's too high, then just do a water change to reduce the nitrite down enough. I think the standard is around 2.0 ppm, but could be wrong.

 

[Mattg023]

I know but is the nitrite toooo high? Like will that stump the cycle?

No it doesn’t look too high. When I cycled my tank I had that high nitrite as well

 

[brandon429]

handy reference for this cycle: fritz has been charted in multiple confirmed tests already for deposition time onto surfaces, Dr. Reef's thread on bottle bac.

=5 days and its ready per that thread. ready = he did 100% water change, retested ammonia, it passed with nothing dosed because the biofilms on rocks were adhered and functional.

so waiting will not hurt at all, for the wasewater to clear.

but if you changed your water out for a little bit of new, you could also begin reefing its why that brand of bottle bac costs $ most of all


nitrite only stalls or influences an old school cycle where we must wait for wastewater to clear.

but per 2020 its only about nh3 control, nitrite doesnt factor any longer, and changing out water to reveal a clean water table + functional substrates means a much faster start can be had. if you wanted to start now or in a few more days nbd can do.


fritz, biospira and a few others allowed start times as soon as 1-3 days in his thread.

dr tim's was closer to ten