rojees Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 Ok guys, its me again. A little background to my tank, I initially used fish flakes but nothing happened so I had to get ammonia solution. Had been dosing to get to 2ppm, it only ever dropped once (no idea what happened there) over 3 weeks and that's why I went out to get fritz turbo start 900 to kickstart the cycle. So 2 days ago, I used fritz turbo start 900 in my tank. The ammonia was still around 2ppm, but the nitrites went through the roof (I used the sera nitrite test and it read 5.0ppm, red colour on the chart). The next day, ammonia dropped to about 0.5ppm, so i dosed it back to 2ppm. Nitrites still 5.0ppm Today, ammonia roughly 1ppm, so I added a little more, nitrites again 5ppm 1. Do I leave it as is? and continue dosing ammonia to 2ppm 2. do a water change to lower the nitrites now? 3. or will that happen naturally? Quote Link to comment
jservedio Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 You keep dosing the ammonia back up to 2ppm until the tank is able to fully process 2ppm of ammonia through to nitrate in 24 hours. Ammonia is first converted to nitrite and then further converted to nitrate. The fact you are getting nitrite means your tank is in the process of cycling. When your tank is cycled, you should never really be able to detect nitrite since it'll be converted to nitrate as fast as it's being produced. Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted July 30, 2021 Author Share Posted July 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, jservedio said: You keep dosing the ammonia back up to 2ppm until the tank is able to fully process 2ppm of ammonia through to nitrate in 24 hours. Ammonia is first converted to nitrite and then further converted to nitrate. The fact you are getting nitrite means your tank is in the process of cycling. When your tank is cycled, you should never really be able to detect nitrite since it'll be converted to nitrate as fast as it's being produced. I understand but is the nitrite level meant to be so high? Quote Link to comment
jservedio Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 It just means your nitrosomonas population is larger than your nitrobacter population at the current time. Nitrobacter can double in about 13 hours (compared to nitrosomonas in 24), so it won't take as long to finish cycling as it did for your ammonia to start being processed. You added bottled bacteria, so you really have no idea how much of each type of bacteria was still alive. Just keep adding ammonia to 2ppm until it's fully processed in 24 hours and you have 0 nitrite. Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted July 30, 2021 Author Share Posted July 30, 2021 1 hour ago, jservedio said: It just means your nitrosomonas population is larger than your nitrobacter population at the current time. Nitrobacter can double in about 13 hours (compared to nitrosomonas in 24), so it won't take as long to finish cycling as it did for your ammonia to start being processed. You added bottled bacteria, so you really have no idea how much of each type of bacteria was still alive. Just keep adding ammonia to 2ppm until it's fully processed in 24 hours and you have 0 nitrite. ok cheers for that! appreciate it! Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted July 30, 2021 Author Share Posted July 30, 2021 one more thing, I have some microbacter 7, do I need to dose any in? Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted July 31, 2021 Author Share Posted July 31, 2021 OK quick update Nitrates are also through the roof, using the sera nitrate test kit, dark red colour, >100mg/l now since I have added Fritz a few days ago...does that mean I'm pretty much good to go?I see some people dose fritz then add fish. What about the daily readings? or does fritz bypass this? Quote Link to comment
PeterU Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 I personally wouldn't add any livestock until your nitrates drop to a reasonable level, at least below 40. I don't think your cycle is complete until it is. Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted August 1, 2021 Author Share Posted August 1, 2021 Thanks for the reply. Quick update today: So I did a water change (50% water change). to se if the nitrites would come down to a readable level. So far I was using teh Sera nitrite tet and it came back dark red, so very high nitrites 5.0mg/l or more. What i did today after the water change Tests - please see the pics Sera Nitrite test - still dark red 5.0m.g/l or greater API Nitrite test (thought I try a different brand), purplish- maybe 0.5-1.0mg/l so which one to believe? what is going on?! I also tested Ammonia (Salifert and API strip) Salifert Ammonia test came back around 0.5 and the API strip showed about between 0.5.-1.0, so I think that's pretty consistent. what is going on? Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 i read the other conversation said you added rock on tuesday. and then you seeded the rock with Fritz 2 days ago? so, the tank has had 2 days to start its cycle, and needs about month more. the 3 weeks before that what did you use to seed bacteria? how did nitrates get so high? was there other rock in there that was removed? does the water you're using already have high nitrate levels? i guess if you removed and replaced rock you're starting again from square one. 1 Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted August 2, 2021 Author Share Posted August 2, 2021 10 hours ago, rough eye said: i read the other conversation said you added rock on tuesday. and then you seeded the rock with Fritz 2 days ago? so, the tank has had 2 days to start its cycle, and needs about month more. the 3 weeks before that what did you use to seed bacteria? how did nitrates get so high? was there other rock in there that was removed? does the water you're using already have high nitrate levels? i guess if you removed and replaced rock you're starting again from square one. No, I did not use any rock before, I just used two bio blocks from the beginning, which are still in the back chamber. Nothing was really happening those 3 weeks and not enough surface, hence I decided to get rock, and then subsequently dosed Fritz to move it faster. In those initial 3 weeks, I added Microbacter 7. There were no readings apart from ammonia, which stayed pretty constant. Nitrites and Nitrates only went up after Fritz was added. During the initial 3 weeks (with no rock), there were no nitrites or nitrates . How come the large discrepancy between the tests? which test kit should I base it on? Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 i'm not familiar with those tests. looks like for whatever reason(s), the tank did not begin to start cycling until now. so you're a few days in. test daily, mainly to see when ammonia and nitrites read ZERO, after which time you can consider adding livestock. as for what happened to stall the cycle earlier, what kind of water are you using? what filtration? Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted August 2, 2021 Author Share Posted August 2, 2021 I'm using Ro/di water. I just have some bio balls and two sponges. Taken the filter sock out. WHats yours take re dosing ammonia? keep dosing it back to 2 or 3ppm? or do nothing for now until both ammonia and nitrites reach 0, then add some ammonia. Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 58 minutes ago, rojees said: WHats yours take re dosing ammonia? keep dosing it back to 2 or 3ppm? or do nothing for now until both ammonia and nitrites reach 0, then add some ammonia. i took a completely different approach than you. my goal was to create the most natural, diverse and healthy environment so i used wet, live rock. i don't think dosing ammonia with live rock is a good idea. instead i used food to provide the nutrients to get the bacteria growing and healthy. the people at the LFS said i could have added livestock immediately, but i chose to wait a month, by which time i saw plenty of evidence that the tank was a friendly environment for life and would be relatively problem-free. Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted August 2, 2021 Author Share Posted August 2, 2021 2 minutes ago, rough eye said: i took a completely different approach than you. my goal was to create the most natural, diverse and healthy environment so i used wet, live rock. i don't think dosing ammonia with live rock is a good idea. instead i used food to provide the nutrients to get the bacteria growing and healthy. the people at the LFS said i could have added livestock immediately, but i chose to wait a month, by which time i saw plenty of evidence that the tank was a friendly environment for life and would be relatively problem-free. wow so did you use any test kits? or you simply waited a month and just added fish thereafter? Quote Link to comment
rough eye Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 8 minutes ago, rojees said: wow so did you use any test kits? or you simply waited a month and just added fish thereafter? i used the api test kit. i tested every day for the first couple months. less often now. but i do test specific gravity daily. Quote Link to comment
rojees Posted August 3, 2021 Author Share Posted August 3, 2021 I'm sticking to the API nitrite test kit, which still reads 0.5 today and ammoina is about 0 (salifert test) Quote Link to comment
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