cycling help

[doviiman]

Ok so this is my first time doing fish less cycling.
Added ammonia last night and then a bacteria starter around 11pm, came home today and tank was reading, ammonia at 4-5, high nitrites and hi nitrates. I assume now that I am reading Nitrates even though its only been one night, the bacterial has starting eating the ammonia. The question is do I start doing water changes now, or do I wait until the Ammonia starts going down and add more ammonia?

 

[Hot Slime]

Your seeing nitrates that fast already? Everything is brand new? Your not using any media/ substrate that may have been seeded? Does your tap contain nitrates? Kind of fast for cycling to see nitrates already.

 

[pacu mom]

Ok so this is my first time doing fish less cycling.
Added ammonia last night and then a bacteria starter around 11pm, came home today and tank was reading, ammonia at 4-5, high nitrites and hi nitrates. I assume now that I am reading Nitrates even though its only been one night, the bacterial has starting eating the ammonia. The question is do I start doing water changes now, or do I wait until the Ammonia starts going down and add more ammonia?

Congratulations on doing a fishless cycle! Are you using an API Freshwater Master Test Kit? The nitrate test is extremely technique sensitive, i.e., the bottles and tubes need to be shaken vigorously for the entire length of time as instructed, or you can get a false reading. Pretty unusual to see nitrates in a day. I agree with Hot Slime--check and make sure you don't have nitrates in your tap water. If you are using an API test kit, you should initially add enough ammonia to have 4ppm. When ammonia is down to 0ppm, add enough ammonia to get it back to 4ppm. Do not change the water. (Unless you add too much ammonia and have a reading of 8ppm or something) Usually it takes a while for the nitrite consuming bacteria to colonize and produce nitrate. It took over a month to fishless cycle our 300 gallon tank. Other fishkeepers have also noticed that getting the nitrites down took up the longest part of the cycling process. Once you add ammonia and have ammonia 0ppm and nitrites 0ppm in about 24 hours, your tank is considered cycled. At that point, you can do a very large water change to get the nitrates low. My nitrate reading was >160ppm. I'm looking at my log from 2/16/06 - 3/17/06 I had nitrites at 5ppm for 11 straight days before it dropped to .25ppm

It's really helpful to keep a daily log of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings, and how much ammonia was added to the tank, and what the ammonia reading was after adding more ammonia. Some "experts" recommend adding ammonia to get it back up to 2ppm after you get a nitrite reading. I had a dilute source of ammonia and had to add 132ml to get a 4ppm reading.

 

[doviiman]

Your seeing nitrates that fast already? Everything is brand new? Your not using any media/ substrate that may have been seeded? Does your tap contain nitrates? Kind of fast for cycling to see nitrates already.

Yes everything was brand new, except for about 8 Liters of pond matrix I had seeding in the sump of two holding tanks. My tap does not contain any Nitrate, its actually pretty good with the exception of the chlorine. I did try the Turbo start 700 frozen bacterial to aid in the cycling..

 

[brich999]

The seeded pond matrix should help. I'd say it should still take prob 2 weeks until the rest of the setup is good to go.

 

[doviiman]

Congratulations on doing a fishless cycle! Are you using an API Freshwater Master Test Kit? The nitrate test is extremely technique sensitive, i.e., the bottles and tubes need to be shaken vigorously for the entire length of time as instructed, or you can get a false reading. Pretty unusual to see nitrates in a day. I agree with Hot Slime--check and make sure you don't have nitrates in your tap water. If you are using an API test kit, you should initially add enough ammonia to have 4ppm. When ammonia is down to 0ppm, add enough ammonia to get it back to 4ppm. Do not change the water. (Unless you add too much ammonia and have a reading of 8ppm or something) Usually it takes a while for the nitrite consuming bacteria to colonize and produce nitrate. It took over a month to fishless cycle our 300 gallon tank. Other fishkeepers have also noticed that getting the nitrites down took up the longest part of the cycling process. Once you add ammonia and have ammonia 0ppm and nitrites 0ppm in about 24 hours, your tank is considered cycled. At that point, you can do a very large water change to get the nitrates low. My nitrate reading was >160ppm. I'm looking at my log from 2/16/06 - 3/17/06 I had nitrites at 5ppm for 11 straight days before it dropped to .25ppm

It's really helpful to keep a daily log of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings, and how much ammonia was added to the tank, and what the ammonia reading was after adding more ammonia. Some "experts" recommend adding ammonia to get it back up to 2ppm after you get a nitrite reading. I had a dilute source of ammonia and had to add 132ml to get a 4ppm reading.

Yes I am using the API Master Test Kit.
This morning before I left for work, I tested the water again just to see if I was actually reading nitrates, and again it was still reading about 5-6 ammonia ppm, about 60-80 Nitrates, and 5+ nitrites. If this is correct and I do have nitrates, will it be a matter of time for the BB to eat the rest fo the ammonia? I did not think it was possible to have high ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I will cehck again this evening when i get home to see if there is any change in the ammonia.
As for the nitrate test, I usually shake the bottle until it makes a good foam, and then wait aboout 5 or so minutes for the color to arrive, but I will shaking for the entire minute this time.

 

[Hot Slime]

The pond matrix gave you a jump start. So once you see the ammonia and nitrite at 0 you should be good to go.

 

[doviiman]

The pond matrix gave you a jump start. So once you see the ammonia and nitrite at 0 you should be good to go.

Okay so are we saying even though I have ammonia at about 6ppm and nitrates between 80-120 ppm, and my nitrites 5+ppm, am I to just wait until the ammonia and the nitrates go to 0? Or now that I have high nitrates do I start doing daily water changes?

 

[pacu mom]

Okay so are we saying even though I have ammonia at about 6ppm and nitrates between 80-120 ppm, and my nitrites 5+ppm, am I to just wait until the ammonia and the nitrates go to 0? Or now that I have high nitrates do I start doing daily water changes?

Don't change the water until you have 0ppm nitrites. If your ammonia zeroes out, and you still have nitrites, add enough ammonia to get it back to 4ppm. The purpose of the water change is simply to get rid of nitrates, the end product of the nitrogen cycle. Your tank will be cycled when you can add ammonia (to 4ppm) and ammonia and nitrites are 0ppm within 24 hours. Until you can add ammonia and have 0ppm ammonia and nitrites within a day, your tank is not fully cycled. I had nitrites at around 5ppm for 11 days, when it suddenly dropped to .25ppm. In the last three days, my nitrates went from 7.5 to 160+ppm. At that point, I changed out enough water to get 0ppm nitrates and moved my fish. At .25ppm nitrites, my tank was not fully cycled, and it took another two weeks before I had 0ppm nitrites. I jumped the gun. It would have been better if I had waited for the nitrites to completely zero out before I moved my fish.

 

[Pandamania]

*It IS possible to have high readings of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates at the same time. A family emergency kept me from properly caring for my tanks, and within 2 weeks my tanks were messed up badly! I have since corrected everything in my tanks, and very thankful that none of my fish have had any illness from the nasty conditions they had to put up with. Good luck with your new tank.