Day 8 Of Cycling... Help!

[EllenMarie]

Today, in counting will be cycling day 8. I added ammonia two days ago, and it has already dropped down to about .2 ppm. My nitrites seem to be high- off the scale, infact. (I'm an API user ) A little help?- I saw a pinned post saying that if the water in the test tube turned green, being unable to read, you had your nitrite spike. Mine turned a neon purple...( assuming I've had my Nitrite Spike???) compared to the sheet, the purple in my test tube is VERY purple...! My Nitrates are around 40ppm. My fish load will be pretty large...if not about average. anybody have an idea of when I should be able to put my fish in? Should I be concerned that my tank is cycling fast? is 8 days- too fast? Thanks! Ellen

 

[Essjay]

That comment about the nitrite test going green doesn't always happen. If yours goes purple, it could still be off the scale - what usually happens is that it goes the colour for the highest level on the chart no matter how high above that it actually is.

The second stage with high nitrite usually lasts longer than the first, high ammonia stage. You will need to wait until you are adding ammonia every day and the ammonia and nitrite readings have been falling to zero within 12 hours for 7 days. The 7 days is called the qualifying week, and is done because sometimes ammonia and/or nitrite start to reappear at the 12 hour test.

It is impossible to say how long this will take as evey tank is different.

 

[Moby-Krib]

Twin post to this one
could a mod maybe combine them?