Ammonia Levels

[dudleyd]

What should the ammonia level be doing during the nitrite spike stage of cycling? My ammonia is dosed up to 4ppm and nitrite is off the scale, i have seen absolutly NO ammonia drop at all over the last 2 weeks. Cycle is now on day 27.

Everything just seems to have stopped.

DD

 

[waterdrop]

What is your pH?

 

[drobbyb]

My initial thought would be to ask for your pH too. By day 27 you should be processing some ammonia, and if you are not, then your pH may have crashed.

 

[dudleyd]

The PH was low and i have raised it 4 days ago and it's now at around 7.6. Do you think it needs to be higher still. Have got some PH up and as i'm doing a fishless cycle can adjust to whatever without risk of upsetting anything.

I have obviously processed some ammonia as i have nitrite and nitrate in the tank but 0 in my tap water.

Thanks DD

 

[waterdrop]

I believe we've had discussions in the past that most of us would rather not leave the breakdown products of these pH up and down products sitting in our substrate and filter media after the big water change. We'd rather have the leftover sodium from baking soda, much more of which will go out with the water change. Personally, I'd use baking soda (tablespoon per each 50L would be a starting point) and increase it to see if I could get all the way up to 8 or at least closer. I'd also monitor things and if you've got one of these tanks that quickly uses up its buffer and wants to drop out of the better ranges, I'd consider doing a 90% water change and recharging the ammonia and baking soda afterward.. this would be on a weekend perhaps a couple weeks away, if it dropped that fast.

You don't have any other weird painted decorations or substrate or anything that could be doing something to the tank chemistry do you?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dudleyd]

Thanks WD, i'll get some bakingsoda tomorrow from the shops, assuming i'm not snowed in.

Got gravel and some silk plants in the tank, everything was got from P@H and washed in a bucket of dechlorinated water before being added to the tank.

No change in the levels of ammonia and nitrite again today.

 

[waterdrop]

Thanks WD, i'll get some bakingsoda tomorrow from the shops, assuming i'm not snowed in.

Got gravel and some silk plants in the tank, everything was got from P@H and washed in a bucket of dechlorinated water before being added to the tank.

No change in the levels of ammonia and nitrite again today.

Just a note, listening to you say that.. the need to dechlorinate is something that doesn't need to go beyond the treatment of volumes of water that go into the tank. When you work with gravel or decorations (or even the cleaning of the *mechanical parts* (meaning the filter box, the tubes, impeller etc. - anything that is NOT a filtration media) of a filter,) there's no need to use dechlorinated water, tap water will be fine in those cases and often easier since you can just hold the object under the faucet as you clean it. Its only the filter media (sponge, ceramic rings, filter floss, etc) and the "refill" water that would have enough volume to cause any harm to fish or bacteria.

Also, a good habit to get in to whenever you start a new thread, for what ever reason, is to work in a re-statement somewhere in the first post that reminds the members of the most basic aspects of your situaton (like, such and so sized tank, fishless cycling etc).. Some members just put a little summary like that in their signature area so that it automatically goes on each post and then they change it after the cycle is over.
But that's entirely your own choice.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dudleyd]

good idea about the signature thing WD, i'll do that now.

Many thanks.