Help ASAP!!! Nitrite problem

[Matt724]

Hey guys, I've had my tank setup for about a week and a half and used a pretty good amount of live bacteria to, as the LFS guy said "instantly cycle your tank" (or in 3-4 days) and all I had to do was keep enough ammonia to upkeep the large amount of bacteria. You could probably find my thread labeled "new tank" somewhere through my profile or something, but after a week and a half of no problems, yesterday I did a small 20% water change on my 10 g and today I checked my ammonia & nitrite. My ammonia was close to zero, which was good, but then my nitrite, which I have been checking daily, jumped to 0.50, which isn't that bad, but I'm just wondering why it would jump like that after staying at zero for such a long time. Is this normal? I though water changes were supposed to help the tank cycle.

All feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

[TwistedPenguin]

Yes, it does jump just like that. It'll get higher yet in the next few days. And no-if there's no fish in there there's no sense doing water changes. Just let that bacteria build up and do it's job. The nitrite part of the cycle drags on forever. I don't know what kind of "live bacteria" you used but most of them are worthless. There's one or 2 that actually work.

 

[swede]

your cycle will go like this: you will have a spike in ammonia, then that will regulate and drop. the by product of this is a spike in nitrite, which will then regulate and drop. then finally, you will have an increase in nitrates as a byproduct of the nitrite spike. after all this happens, you have fully "cycled" the tank. you still have a bit to go with the cycle. once nitrites have been 0 for a few days, you can add fish. anything before this will put unnecessary stress on the stock

 

[bluehairman]

If there's fish, add salt, boost temp, have a lot of air flow near the surface.