Still have Nitrites after 4 weeks

[Danny 1018]

My nitrite readings have not gone down to zero yet after a full 4 weeks. I still see readings of @ 0.50.

Any suggestions what I should do next ? I backed off feeding the past couple days and started doing 33% water changes after 21 days and just did another today, day 29.
I used Prime and Stability per bottle instructions for the first 10 days and also after the 2 water changes. When I was in the hobby years ago, Marineland's refrigerated Bio Spira worked extremely well and I never saw prolonged readings of nitrites.

Tank size is 75 gallons with one Penguin 375 HOB. Three severums, 2- 4 1/2 inches each were placed in the tank on day 1. I will be adding a second filter in the near future.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tlindsey]

My nitrite readings have not gone down to zero yet after a full 4 weeks. I still see readings of @ 0.50.

Any suggestions what I should do next ? I backed off feeding the past couple days and started doing 33% water changes after 21 days and just did another today, day 29.
I used Prime and Stability per bottle instructions for the first 10 days and also after the 2 water changes. When I was in the hobby years ago, Marineland's refrigerated Bio Spira worked extremely well and I never saw prolonged readings of nitrites.

Tank size is 75 gallons with one Penguin 375 HOB. Three severums, 2- 4 1/2 inches each were placed in the tank on day 1. I will be adding a second filter in the near future.

Thanks in advance.

Any positive Nitrate reading? Also not unusual for a complete cycle to take longer than 4 weeks.

 

[duanes]

Any positive Nitrate reading? Also not unusual for a complete cycle to take longer than 4 weeks.

Agree
A full cycle can take 6 to 8 weeks, so still seeing nitrite at 4 weeks is totally normal.
Consider that a full cycle is the building up an ecosystem of enough population of beneficial bacteria to consume ammonia and nitrite, this is no small feat.

 

[Danny 1018]

Agree
A full cycle can take 6 to 8 weeks, so still seeing nitrite at 4 weeks is totally normal.
Consider that a full cycle is the building up an ecosystem of enough population of beneficial bacteria to consume ammonia and nitrite, this is no small feat.



Thanks for calming me down a bit...I expected the Seachem Prime and Stability products to speed things up.

Any positive Nitrate reading? Also not unusual for a complete cycle to take longer than 4 weeks.

Nitrate about 5-10ppm.

 

[tlindsey]

Nitrate about 10ppm.

That's great. Just continue with the wc's and light feedings. Can't give you a accurate time but sounds like it getting near to completion.

 

[pacu mom]

When I fishless cycled my tank, the ammona readings went down fairly fast. However, it took FOREVER for the nitrite readings to zero out. The beneficial bacteria that consume nitrites are slower to colonize. If it were my tank, I would dose very liberally with a biological additive like Dr. Tim's One and Only. (Dr. Tim developed Biospira before he formed his own company)

 

[Something Fishy Here]

I used Dr Tims from day 1 of my last tank and my cycle still took about 3 weeks. Granted I was new to it and out of fishkeeping for a couple years. IMO you're only a couple weeks away from cycled anyway, adding Dr Tims now may drop it down a week.

 

[duanes]

The thing about "bottled bacteria", is conditions must be close to perfect for the particular bacterial species, to actually reach population for them to actually work.
There must be enough ammonia and nitrite ahead of time in the water for them to feed on, but not too much, or too little.
The pH and temp, the species has evolved to live in, must be correct.
Other water parameters must also be in line, with their preferences.
Even amount of light may be taken into account, these bacteria prefer it dim.
If all is perfect, cycle can almost be immediate.
If one component is not, it still could take 6 weeks, because this bacteria in a bottle is in an inert state, and has to divide to reach a large enough population to consume the amount of ammonia in the water. Or not so much ammonia to overwhelm.
Because I was a microbiologist, I had many occasions to use inert bacterial cultures, and found unless all conditions were dead on, they were hit or miss,

 

[Danny 1018]

Thank you for the replies. Nitrites finally were at zero today.

Happy Holidays !