Cycling In A 5 Gallon Bucket

In the beginning when the ammonia is moving down slowly, there is plenty of time for the other species that processes nitrite(NO2) to slowly dribble through the nitrite and turn it into nitrate which may then more or less disappear from your ability to detect it with a nitrate kit (partly because nitrate kits are not that great at what they do and partly because a new setup and filter has other surfaces and molecules to attract some of the nitrate ions and take them out of circulation with respect to your kit. So at first it is quite common to see ammonia slowly go down and then just seem to disappear from the "system" you think you are measuring.

Once things really get going and you are pumping in a good 3 to 5ppm a day of ammonia the story will be different and will result in the huge spike of excess nitrite for which there are not yet enough Nitrospira to handle the processing.

It's ideal to let the ammonia drop to zero unless it drags out, in which case you might recharge at 1ppm.

~~waterdrop~~

O.K. I definitely have something going on here but it is not reacting like I expected. Ammonia dropped to 1ppm so I re dosed back up to 4ppm yesterday. Also had to add about a gallon of water (dechlorinator only) due to evaporation loss. I didn't check the water I added for ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate as there has never been any in the tap water before. So today I check again.

Then I noticed the pic looked different than my own eyes were telling me so I adjusted the angle and set the tubes where they look like they go to me and snapped another pic

So first I see
PH 8.3
Ammonia 3.0
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 7.0
They all kinda look between colors to me except no nitrites. Anyone else eyes disagree?
If my readings are right I have ran 5ppm ammonia thru in the last 4 days and now have at least that much Nitrate without ever seeing nitrite. I can see a little nitrite slipping thru while I wasn't looking but how would that much nitrite slip thru unnoticed?
I am planning on letting it run for a few days without doing anything to see where it goes now. I was really looking forward to the nitrite spike.

i agree , no nitrites there ....

So here I am 2 days later and seem to be getting the same results:

My eyes tell me
PH 8.3
Ammonia 1.5
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 4.0
So why no nitrites, and where is the ammonia going?
Doesn't seem to be going straight to nitrates as they haven't rose any even went down a little. (yes I am shaking the crap out of the nitrate bottle then the tube then the other bottle then the tube again)

It can take awhile. If I were you, I would stop testing Nitrates everyday untill after you see the nitrite spike starting to lower. You are just wasting those tests.

Well I finally got some results with this little experiment. It took till Monday the 28th of May to get the first hit of nitrites. That is just a day over a month to show the first nitrite. Ammonia had been dropping for 2 weeks just wasn't showing on the nitrite test yet.
Now 5 weeks into this little experiment I am finally seeing a nitrite spike. I think it is running 4ppm nitrite but I'm not exactly sure as the purple doesn't match any of the colors on the chart. I am thinking it is around 4ppm because I did a 50% water change thinking that they were off the chart and it now looks like the 2ppm color on nitrite. Seems like this experiment is sure taking a long time. My fish in cycle was only 2 months, but a lot of work, this is now at 6 weeks and still no sign of getting done anytime soon. I was under the impression that a fishless cycle is something that could be done in a month.

It takes different amounts of time for everyone. On average I'd say about 6 weeks. Now when I set up a new tank I just use mature filter media and it's done!

I was wondering if this is the color that is off the chart that everyone talks about or is is between colors?

Yikes! Looks off the chart to me.

Did a water change last night and re-dosed ammonia back to 2ppm. Looks like 1ppm ammonia and 1ppm nitrite to my eyes but the camera seems a little lighter. Pretty good to clear 1ppm ammonia overnight I would think.

4seasons said:

I was wondering if this is the color that is off the chart that everyone talks about or is is between colors?
View attachment 67311

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That's not off the chart; off the chart is a sort of greeny grey that looks closer to a zero than anything else.

OK, My bacteria is eating 2ppm ammonia in less than 24 hours now. Today I took these readings:

I redosed ammonia back up to 4ppm to see if it can clear that in 24 hours. I guess that will give me the off the chart nitrite color as there have already been 3ppm ammonia thru in the last 2 days.

Well now I know what an "off the chart" nitrite looks like.

This was after running 1ppm ammonia thru in 24 hours redosing and running 2 ppm thru in 24 hours. Then like in my last post I read 4ppm ammonia thru and that took 48 hours. After that I ran 4 ppm more thru in 24 hours and then redosed to 8ppm. I checked that after 36 hours and had 0 ammonia. Nitrates are up to 10-20ppm so most of the nitrites aren't being converted yet.

As a side note I have read that 1ppm ammonia will be converted into 2.7ppm nitrite but I have never seen anything about how much 1ppm nitrite becomes when it is converted into nitrate. Of course I cant tell the difference in the 10ppm nitrate and the 20ppm, nor the 40ppm and 80ppm. They both look the same on my card. So if I assume that I have 20ppm nitrate now and have 5ppm in my tap water I am up 15ppm nitrates. I know I had to run 19ppm ammonia to get where I am now so if I had the nitrite to nitrate conversion rate I could guesstimate the nitrite level now.

When you say how much ammonia you are runnign through, you aren't dosing that high are you? not above 4ppm at once?

I think I read that funny. It looks like you are getting really close. Once you can start tracking the nitrites on the chart, you are on the downhill of the cycle! It will probably feel fast after that.

Ok I am trying to grasp the idea,
A filter will process a said amount of ammonia / Nitrite in a given period,
However to dose a 5 gal system as compared to a 55 gal system a measurable lvl of dosing to 4ppm could vary from .5ml to 2.5ml.. is this even a viable comparison??
The measured amount in a lesser volume is hardly comparable to the ultimate goal in my opinion.

The measurement should be somewhat equal to the eventual useful / expected load of the stock. not based on a dilution in a markedly smaller volume of water that will only lead to a higher, possibly toxic to the bacteria secondary result ..

This goes against everything I have read.. I don't think it will produce a good result. And if it does it will only lead to a crash once introduced to a higher volume situation.

Again I am new but trying to FULLY understand the mechanics