Fishless Cycle

Hi All!

Just tested my tap water for nitrates. See picture below, it's very high.

I'm currently trying to fishless cycle my tank, I'm on day 12 now and my water levels are:

Ammonia 3ppm
Nitrites 1ppm
Nitrates 5ppm

My ammonia levels do not appear to be coming down, yet I have nitrites.

Are the nitrates in my tap water stalling my cycle?

Some advice would be great thanks

Hi Jon,
I'm confused because you say you're reading 5ppm nitrates but I see about 80ppm nitrates in your picture.
To address your question. I don't see why it would be. How big is your tank, 12 days isn't that long and if you've got something like a 120 etc it could take several weeks before you start seeing the typical spikes.
Some things you can try to speed up visual results: crank the heater up.
Bacteria will reproduce faster with warmer water, going from mid 70s to mid 80s can effectively double your colonization time.
Plants (especially heavily planted) will interfere with your readings as they uptake some of the things you're measuring for, namely ammonia and nitrate.

Hi, yes nitrates read 5ppm in my tank, but if I test water straight from my tap, it reads really high (That's what the picture is).
I have a 5 gallon tank (Just going to have a single Betta in there) running 2 sponge filters.
The water is set at 80 degrees.
I suppose I was just worried that the nitrates already present in my tank (which are there from the tap water) would be stalling my cycle.
Nitrites were present from about day 3, so I suppose I expected a bit of a drop in my ammonia. Bit there hasn't been.

Thanks for your reply

Ok so as far as I know the only thing that can really stunt the BB comes in 2 forms. One is an excessive ammonia reading, ammonia being too high can actually kill off nitrobacter, while nitrite in excess can inhibit reproduction. Both your levels seem well within the range of safety. As for the nitrate, I've never heard of it inhibiting BB.

The good news is that since you're going fishless you don't need to be concerned with any of these levels immediately. I would crank the heater as high as it will go and wait 3 days. This should be ample time to allow 2-3 reproductive cycles of BB. If you aren't getting results you want do a 50% or more water change. The WC should not effect the cycle so long as there is some ammonia to process.

i don't know if that really answers your question but I just don't think there's much you can do at this point besides wait.

If you aren't getting the results you want try adding some live nitrifying bacteria from a bottle and that way you will be able to determine if they are surviving after monitoring your levels for a few days