Ammonia / Nitrite Levels....

[Adie]

Ok I'm using a Nutrafin Liquid test kit if that helps

Ammonia just came in low before the change @ 0.6 mg/l on the chart - I don't know what that converts to on a PPM basis.

Nitrite came in at 0.8 mg/l.

I just did a 8L water change (it's a 60l) tank. This is the second one today. This reduced the Nitrite level to just under 0.3 mg/l

If you see my other thread fish were added to the aquarium 7 days ago - sadly before I discovered the fishless cycle method. Had I known I would have preferred to do that.

Now I was suprised to see the ammonia so low. Are my Nitrites spiking? I have a ball of media floating in the tank, this is made by Soll. Purchased from the LFS (a good one) to encourage the bacteria cycle.

I'm a little confused as the ammonia seems to be lower than I would have expected given this length of time and I would have thought it too early for Nitrites to be spiking. That or I'm totally confused.

The tank is populated with 5 Zebra Danios and 1 common plec at the moment.

 

[rabbut]

The low reading are probibly a result of the mature media in the tank. The media have all the bacteria already presant, the numbers just have to multiply to be able to process the waste load. It is not uncomon to see no obvious nitrite spike, when mature media in used in a lightly stocked fish-in cycling tank.
HTH clear things up
Rabbut

 

[rdd1952]

The stuff floating in the tank won't do any good as nitrifying bacteria can not live in a dried state so if the ball was a solid mass, it contains no beneficial bacteria. Also, beneficial bacteria aren't free floating in the water so I don't know how the floating ball could possibly work even if the bacteria could live dried. Also, there has to be a flow of water over them to bring food so I don't know how that would work on a floating object either. It may actually be absorbing some of the ammonia and nitrite which isn't necessarily good as that will slow the tank from actually cycling. Personally, I would take it out.

PPM and MG/L are the same thing basically. There may be a minute difference in them but not enough to matter. If I were you, I would check to see if you can return the plec as he will quickly out grow your tank. They really need at least a 4' tank. They also generally don't do well in a cycling tank. Step up the amount of your water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite below .25 ppm if at all possible. The danios will probably handle the toxins ok but not the plec.

 

[Adie]

Thank you. The thing in the ball actually came in a pot with in liquid. You had the choice to either put it in the filter (there's no room) or suspend it in a net of some sort (the toe end of a kindly donated pair of my Girlfriends tights).

I didn't want the plec in the first place - indeed I would have preferred a fishless cycle. However, I'll take your advice of more frequent water changes on board.

Adie

 

[CruX]

I would start looking at larger volume water changes too. Think in terms of percentages. Any thing over 0.5 mg/l would make me want to do at least a 50% change.