Ammonia/nitrite/nitrate?

[fishielover]

I have been cycling my tank for a few weeks and have been doing almost daily water changes. My ammonia levels are between 0.5 and 1.0. My Nitrates and NItrites have both stayed 0. What should i look to be happening soon? Fishies are doing fine, havent lost any yet and they are very healthy looking. When do i know i am close to a completed cycle? Thanks for the help.

 

[canarsie11]

Did you ever have nitrite reading?

 

[ajhainey]

I hate to say it - but it sounds to me like it hasn't started yet. You are looking for nitrite to start to rise then ammonia to fall to 0 and finally nitrite to fall to 0 and nitrate start to rise...

It can be very slow to start if there nothing to kick off the bacteria colonies...Do you have any seed material you can get hold of (filter foam from another tank or gravel) If not you could try something like Hagen's 'Cycle'. Many folks say it does nothing, but it really helped me. Depends how much cash you have to throw around really....

aj xx

 

[ldytmropr]

I used Cycle on my tank. I was having difficulty getting it to cycle. COme to find out I was being too clean, but adding cycle helped me! You have to give it a few days to work though. Good Luck!

 

[fishielover]

no i never had a nitrate or nitrite spike. I check the levels everyday, and all that is reading is the ammonia level. I dont have access to any used gravel or anything because this is my first tank. What can i do to increase the nitrite?

 

[corrosive]

no i never had a nitrate or nitrite spike. I check the levels everyday, and all that is reading is the ammonia level. I dont have access to any used gravel or anything because this is my first tank. What can i do to increase the nitrite?

very unusual... Sure your doing tests correct etc? After a few days to 1 week of having fish in your tank the nitrites should have appeared and the ammonia should have droped to 0 or near it...

Hmm, will be interesting to find out whats happening , but yes as stated above it seems the cycle hasnt started yet which is really strange.




....

 

[washuai]

My tank will be my "first", but I can seed it w/ gravel from LFS, if I want. Since I intend to buy the fish from there, it doesn't seem bad to have bugs that the fish are used to. You did buy the fish from somewhere? Although, if the only thing around is a petsmart, they usually won't let you have the gravel, but since they're scary in their fish keeping, that's probably a good thing. Although, the fish at this petsmart are mostly happy, except they were dumb to take a sick gourami, from their supplier, course they're also evil in putting 5 male dwarf gouramis together anyways. Doesn't shock me in the least the 4 pick on the one. I'll have to be careful about not being too clean, too. I don't think twice a week water change is too clean (I'll only do more, if there's dangerous spikes). I'm personally going to try seeding w/ bio-spira and while I was thinking of using the actual fish, I'm kinda of indecisive, as to whether I want to use ammonia and fishless w/ my bio-spira, or fish-cycle.
My point being---thanks for reminding me not to be too clean w/ my new tank, for it's cycling process.

 

[kev_kb]

I've used Cycle on my tank, but I'm not sure if its actually helped. A lot of sources on the Internet says it does nothing at all!

Anyway, my 20 gal tank has taken three weeks for the Ammonia spike to happen, and now the Nitrite is starting to rise. The wierd thing is I've always had Nitrites along with the Ammonia almost from day 2. I believe the Nitrite spike is a slower process?

One thing to consider is I over stocked my tank for a new setup. I have 8 Neon Tetras and 3 Albino Corys, as my LFS gave my very bad advice. So if your bioload is smaller the process will most likely take longer.

Just keep an eye on your readings, and do water change to keep them safe. Water changes wont harm the cycling unless you reduce your levels to 0 so theres nothing for the process to work with.