Nitrogen cycle abnormality? Yes or no?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
divemaster99

divemaster99

Dovii
MFK Member
Jan 10, 2014
4,795
385
107
Pittsburgh, PA
For the past 3.5 weeks my 75 gallon tank has been cycling, 2 days ago my nitrites were at the peek of their spike at 5.0 ppm. Yesterday and today, both time I tested the water, the nitrite was 0.0 ppm. Is it normal for it to drop THAT quickly from a spike. And if so I had expected my nitrates to start rising as well and they only measured about 5-10 ppm both days? Am I cycling wrong or is it just an abnormality?
 
seems fine stay on course. how much ammonia are you adding? no more than to bring up to 2 to 2.5 ppm. try to keep that steady till all ammonia and nitrite are gone in 24 hours or less.
 
you do need to keep some kind of ammonia in the tank, little bacteria guys need food to grow.
 
pops said:
seems fine stay on course. how much ammonia are you adding? no more than to bring up to 2 to 2.5 ppm. try to keep that steady till all ammonia and nitrite are gone in 24 hours or less.
Click to expand...

I didn't even notice that there was any. Which one is detectable to you (I have bad vision so it's hard to tell between 0 and 0.25 ammonia for me.)
 
I have 6 giant danios in there (so that's my ammonia source). I know I shouldn't fish cycle but they're really hardy fish and I change water every 2 days.
 
then stay the course, do the water changes, if every other day do 80% percent water changes, and prime new water its good for 48 hours and handles up to 4ppm. your water test looks good. careful on over feeding. if ammonia and nitrates stay at 0 like they are now, you are good to go.
 
Awesome, I did notice it was cycling pretty fast, the ammonia spike only took 6 or 7 days.
 
Also if this is relvant, the water seems to be getting darker in color (brown/yellow) almost like a blackwater river. It's still clear but off colored. I have a large piece of driftwood in it but it hasn't been this brown since we got it and the driftwood has been in it the entire time (almost 4 weeks).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom