Cycling Conundrum

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A

AquaApprentice

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 21, 2011
42
1
0
Tampa, Florida
Tank has been cycling for a while now, it is a 55 gallon. My ammonia spiked, nitrite appeared, and then nitrate appeared, my nitrite then dissapeared, but I still have ammonia present.

I have, as of now:

Visible Ammonia (Less than 1.0 PPM...it is hard to read on the card)

0 Nitrites

and at least 10 ppm of Nitrates...

What is going on? Why did my ammonia spike but not dissapear after nitrites dissapeared? And if it is still cycling why did my nitrites dissapear?

I have an Emperor 400 and Fluval 305, and a Fluval 80 Gallon Heater with the temp set at 82. PLEASE HELP!!
 
Seems like your either going through a mini cycle if it was already cycled or it just hasn't cycled yet, others may be able to help you more i'd had weird things like this happen on my tanks before i just did wc's on my established tanks to get rid of nitrates, also maybe check your tap and post the parameters
 
sounds normal, I saw a slight amount of ammonia (0.25 ish) for a couple months after my nitrites spiked. Eventually it went away.
 
I`m going to assume you used ammonia to cycle your tank since you didn`t mention any fish.
The test materials the average fish keeper uses are pretty good, but they are not lab grade. They don`t need to be for what we use them for.
Showing a trace amount of anything is not that unusual.
You can check your ammonia test materials by checking bottled water, should read 0.
If you can add enough ammonia to get the tank in the 1-3ppm range and 24hrs later you read close to 0 more than once, you are done.
Congrats on a successful cycle.
 
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