Nitrites too high during cycle? Help please!

[seabass]

You can run your lights if you want. However, I'm not sure that will trigger a diatom bloom (not that a diatom bloom should be your goal). I'd probably just wait until after ammonia is undetectable and you've done a large water change.

[-E-]

I saw a Red Sea video about the cycle. It had a graph showing how the ammonia and nitrite taper off. I can't find that link and Red Sea doesn't know how to find it either. So, I'm posting a graph of my own cycle with Microbacter7 and dry rock. I did have one rock that used to be live but dried out for 3-4 months. I don't know if it contributed anything.

 

Started Aug 8. It took two weeks for the ammonia to hit zero, then another week for the nitrites to start dropping. I ghost fed the first week (Mon, Wed, Fri)... but probably didn't need to. Didn't do a water change to lower nitrites. Waited for the bacteria to build and take care of the nitrites on their own, then did a water change at the end for the nitrates (as I remembered seeing in the Red Sea video). My nitrates were too high for my test kit to measure. Had to do two 50% water changes to bring them down to 5 ppm. Finished Sep 9.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jayva]

If you don't have coral you don't need to start a cycle. Fish don't care about light.

[xilez]

Sweet graph -E- thanks!

 

Update for me: So Monday night I tested, ammonia was about .5-1ppm and Nitrites 2-5ppm. I put in a small bottle of Bio-Spira (Dr Tims said it would certainly help speed things up, but wasn't "necessary"). Tuesday morning I tested: Ammonia was now .25ppm - Nitrites <2ppm. Last night I tested again to find ammonia is 0 - nitrite was about .5ppm. Tested this morning both ammonia and nitrite at zero with nitrates we being around 20-30ppm.

 

Should I dose again to see what happens in a 24 hours window? I may not be able to get to the LFS for a cleanup crew/water change until Friday so should I use these two days to test ammonia conversion or just wait until Friday and proceed?

[seabass]

Either way. Your tank should be able to support a small cleanup crew. However, another dose of ammonium won't hurt anything. Just wait until ammonia is undetectable before you add any livestock.

[xilez]

Cool. Thanks for all your help Seabass! You da man

[-E-]

Either way. Your tank should be able to support a small cleanup crew. However, another dose of ammonium won't hurt anything. Just wait until ammonia is undetectable before you add any livestock.

+1

[ZeroEvoX]

Im living this right now, this thread should be stickied, helped me tons!

[xilez]

Dosed to 1.5ppm last night. 24 hours later - 0 nitrites 0 ammonia. Clean up crew on Saturday

[sunnycadreamer]

@xilezNot sure if you're on this forum anymore but, I'm having the same issue it seems with Dr. Tim's. My Ammonia has never gone down below .50, I have not dosed since the original 4ppm dosing since the bottle didn't mention to do so. My Nitrites are so purple I can hardly tell if they are between 2 - 5ppm or above 5 ppm. (I REALLY HATE THIS TEST NOW) My Nitrates are higher now so something is working. I think they are at about 40-60 guessing off of the colors. I'm debating on a water change and adding Bio-Spira to get it going again. I've read on a few posts that people added Bio-Spira and their tank finished cycling in 1-2 days after sitting at high Nitrite levels. I feel like the Nitrites should be going down some. I'm not too far into my cycle but, I'm concerned about the Nitrites being so high. My PH has also gone from 8.0 to 7.9/7.8 in 24 hours.

[seabass]

If nitrite is 5 or higher (the process will slow down), you should do a water change to bring it down to notably below 5 ppm.  Then let both ammonia and nitrite go down to 0.25 ppm.  After that, you can dose more ammonia.

[Axol/Lotl]

My ammonia is 4, nitrite is 4-5, nitrate is 80 with API test kit. 2nd week, haven't added fritz ammonium chloride.for 7 days. Nitrites keep rising, nitrates rising and ammonia remains the same. Am I stalled? 

[mcarroll]

On 11/20/2021 at 2:27 PM, Axol/Lotl said:

My ammonia is 4, nitrite is 4-5, nitrate is 80 with API test kit. 2nd week, haven't added fritz ammonium chloride.for 7 days. Nitrites keep rising, nitrates rising and ammonia remains the same. Am I stalled? 

Is this a freshwater tank??

[seabass]

On 11/20/2021 at 1:27 PM, Axol/Lotl said:

My ammonia is 4, nitrite is 4-5, nitrate is 80 with API test kit. 2nd week, haven't added fritz ammonium chloride.for 7 days. Nitrites keep rising, nitrates rising and ammonia remains the same. Am I stalled? 

You might feel that if dosing a little ammonium chloride is good, then dosing a little more shouldn't hurt.  However, it seems that when EITHER ammonia OR nitrite reach 5 ppm, the process will significantly slow down.  You should never dose total ammonia to more than 2 ppm.  To correct this, do a large enough water change to lower both values to well less than 5 ppm (I'd say down to 2 ppm); and then let both values drop to at least 0.25 ppm before proceeding.

 

The process to build up a working biofilter on new dry rock is such:

• Dose ammonium chloride so that total ammonia (NH₃ and NH₄⁺) is 2 ppm, and not more.
• Let total ammonia (as measured by most reagent test kits) drop to 0.25 ppm.*
• Repeat the above two steps until your rock can process the 2 ppm of total ammonia down to 0.25 ppm within 24 hours.

* We are less concerned about nitrite here; but again, you don't want it to climb to 5 ppm (as indicated above).  Nitrite of 5 ppm or higher is usually a result of overdosing ammonia/ammonium.

 

Also, the total timeline doesn't really matter; you are simply interested in your tank's ability to process 2 ppm of total ammonia down to 0.25 ppm within 24 hours. The fact that your tank shows nitrate, indicates that it has the necessary nitrifying bacteria strains.  Some people will tell you that this is enough; but the above process is meant to build up the biofilter to support a larger bio-load (and, to a lesser extent, to build a bacterial base that can help support lower life forms).

 

Finally, keep in mind that not all dry rock is free of dead organic material.  Any dead organics will break down and add an additional ammonia source.  Also, it has sometimes been reported that DrTim's Ammonium Chloride might be a higher concentration than printed on the label.  It might be helpful to test the concentration following the first dose (and adjust subsequent dosing accordingly).