Cycling Question

[PA_fishlover]

I am trying to fishless cycle my 20g aquarium. I suspect I added too much ammonia on the first day (doing the Add and Wait method) which was on Aug 29. My ammonia readings are pretty much off the chart. Should I do a partial water exchange? or just wait and eventually the ammonia will drop? If I should wait, approximately how long will it take until the ammonia will drop? I am willing to be patient, but my son is getting anxious to get some fish in the tank.

Today my stats were:

pH: 7.2
Ammonia: 8+
Nitrite: 2
Nitrate: 20

Thanks for the advice.

 

[heresmike]

Since your test show you've got nitrites, I would suggest just leaving it as is 'til the ammonia drops. It should drop quickly as the nitrite level climbs.

 

[Shelly0518]

I have read and noticed in personal experience that a really high nitrite spike during the fishless cycle "can" prolong the cycle. I noticed this in my tanks. I added too much ammonia and then had to continue adding ammonia because the ammonia would drop to 0 however the nitrites stayed high. I was cycling 2 tanks that were the same size and the one with the higher nitrites took over a week longer to cycle.

If it was me....I would do a 30-40% water change to lower the ammonia to about 5ppm, then wait until the ammonia drops to 0-0.5 then only add enough ammonia to get it up to 2-2.5 ppm per day.

Hope this helps,
Shelly

 

[PA_fishlover]

Well, we decided to do a partial water change to lower the ammonia to a more reasonable level. We are hoping that will speed up the process since we do have some fish waiting to get into the larger tank that is currently cycling (got 2 mollies and 2 platies in a 10 gal tank now)

Thanks for the advice.

 

[PA_fishlover]

OK, here's an update.

We did a water exchange and got the ammonia down to around 4-5. It's now been a week and the ammonia is finally hitting 0 within around 24 hours. However, the nitrites have been stuck at 2 forever. How long before we will see a spike in the nitrites?

Here are my most recent stats:

pH: 8.4
ammonia: 1 (added ammonia to tank at 10pm last night so 12 hours later)
nitrite: 2
nitrate: 5

Thanks

 

[jtnova13]

hey a PA person! What part of PA are you from (sorry off topic)

anyway, why did the pH go up so much? 7.2 - 8.4, thats 20 times more basic than it was before, just wondering.

 

[PA_fishlover]

hey a PA person! What part of PA are you from (sorry off topic)

anyway, why did the pH go up so much? 7.2 - 8.4, thats 20 times more basic than it was before, just wondering.

The pH had always been reading around 7.8 except that one day it was 7.2

I'm from the Reading area. I lived in Norristown for about 6 years though (I see you are from the Philly area)