Fish in cycle, a few questions

[Emi Leigh]

Hello, I have a 5 gallon and didn't realize about the cycling process before I got my betta. I am using seachem prime and stability. I follow the image below for water changes. I started my cycle and I was using Spring water. I had ammonia and nitrate together, pretty early on which is weird. I finally got nitrites a few days ago. My nitrates went up a bit too. Checked my parameters today, as I do everyday and I have nitrites 0, ammonia .25 and nitrates at 20. I use the master test kit from API with the vials.
So this is what happened - had ammonia and nitrates for weeks. With the every other day to daily water change depending on the paremeters. Then I finally got nitrites a few days ago. Still have ammonia and nitrates but now nitrites are gone.. why? ANd what do I do now?!

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The filters generally take about 4-5 weeks for all the beneficial bacteria to grow and develop sufficiently so they turn ammonia into nitrite, and nitrite into nitrate.

Normally you get ammonia for about 2 weeks then the nitrites start to build up. When the nitrites go up the ammonia usually goes down. That is the first part of the cycle.

After the first part of the cycle, the nitrites go up and stay up for a couple of weeks before they start to come down. When the nitrites start to come down, the nitrates go up.

Once the ammonia and nitrite have gone up and come back down to 0, and the nitrates start to go up, then the filter is established and finished its cycling process.

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If you are still getting ammonia readings after a few weeks then it could be from fish food or water conditioner.
If you test the water for ammonia within 2 hours of feeding the fish, there could be ammonia in the water from the food.

Some water conditioners bind to ammonia in the water and prevent it from being broken down by filter bacteria.

You might have chloramine in your tap water. Chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. The ammonia makes the chlorine more toxic to bacteria in the water and helps the chlorine last longer. When you use a dechlorinator in water with chloramine in, the dechlorinator breaks down the chlorine ammonia bond and gets rid of the chlorine, leaving behind ammonia. This can be picked up by test kits.

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Any ammonia or nitrite is harmful to fish so if you get an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0.0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm, you should do a 75% water change. Smaller 25-50% water changes don't dilute the nutrients as much as a 75% water change, and you want to keep these levels as low as possible.

I would feed the fish once a day and do water changes any time you have an ammonia or nitrite reading. Then let the tank run and continue monitoring the levels in the water. The filters will eventually settle down and then you can reduce water changes to once a week and feed a little more often.

 

[Emi Leigh]

I have been doing the water changed and I use Prime. Which is a water conditioner. I am just wondering why I got nitrate and ammonia and then got nitrite but then it dropped to 0. This doesn't seem like a cycling process

 

[Byron]

I have been doing the water changed and I use Prime. Which is a water conditioner. I am just wondering why I got nitrate and ammonia and then got nitrite but then it dropped to 0. This doesn't seem like a cycling process

There can be a lot of factors to water chemistry. You mention Spring water...is this bottled water, or from a well? It could have ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in it, so you should always test your source water for these three. That might explain the nitrate, and maybe the ammonia. Aside from that, I agree with what Colin posted.

I have used Stability once or twice (in an emergency) and it worked well. Follow the directions and use it up, as it will not keep once opened.

Prime is a conditioner, and it will detoxify ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. But in all three cases, the detoxification is not permanent, but only for about 24-36 hours; after that, if these are still present, they will be toxic again. Which is why you do the daily water changes if ammonia or nitrite show above zero.

Ammonia at so low a level can be from other things, like chloramine in the source water as Colin noted. If you are using city water, check what they use in it. If you are only using bottled or well water, it shouldn't have chlorine or chloramine.

Something else connected to the ammonia is pH. What is the pH of the tank water? If it is below 7.0 the ammonia primarily changes into ammonium which is basically harmless. The API test will show either as "ammonia" so in an acidic pH this is not a risk. And the API tests will also still show nitrite or nitrate when Prime is used, so be aware of that; even in their detoxified state they will show up, until such time as the bacteria or plants have taken them up.

 

[Emi Leigh]

Thank you! The pH is 6.6-6.8. The ammonia is around .25 and nitrites are 0. So does that mean my tank could be cycled?

 

[Byron]

Thank you! The pH is 6.6-6.8. The ammonia is around .25 and nitrites are 0. So does that mean my tank could be cycled?

Yes. Another thing in your favour is that you have a 5 gallon tank with just one Betta, so this allows the ammonia produced by the Betta to dissipate more. Not something I would recommend, but we are here dealing with what was done, and hoping to make the best of it.

Can you answer my question about the spring water...what it is and if you tested it for all three?

 

[Emi Leigh]

I was using spring then started using the water from the faucet. I'll test that tomorrow. And I am actually upgrading hjim to a ten gallon soon. I don't have it set up due to moving rooms, but it will be soon. Just gonna use the stuff in my filter to the new tank once its cycled

 

[Byron]

I was using spring then started using the water from the faucet. I'll test that tomorrow. And I am actually upgrading hjim to a ten gallon soon. I don't have it set up due to moving rooms, but it will be soon. Just gonna use the stuff in my filter to the new tank once its cycled

May have been misunderstood...I wasn't meaning that I didn't recommend the 5 gallon for a single Betta. I meant I don't recommend cycling with fish in the new tank. But here with one Betta it could be less risky, but not recommended. Nothing wrong with a larger home though, but that wasn't my aim.

Post test results of the source (tap) water when done and we can review.

 

[Emi Leigh]

Thank you, yes I misunderstood. I have some spring water. I am going to test the spring and faucet water. I will post results once I have them. Thsnk you!

 

[Emi Leigh]

Here are my results:
Faucet water test
pH 6.6
Ammonia 0-.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20

Spring water
pH 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5

 

[Essjay]

Since you are now using tap water, that is where the nitrate is coming from. A lot of tap water has nitrate in it, particularly in agricultural areas where they use a lot of fertiliser. You need to subtract the tap water nitrate reading from the tank nitrate reading to see if nitrate is increasing in the tank. Since your tank water and tap water nitrate are both 20, there has been no nitrate made in the tank yet.



I hope the spring water pH is a typo - a pH of 0 would kill anything put in it!

 

[Emi Leigh]

I have had nitrate most of the cycling process and I was using spring most of it

 

[Emi Leigh]

But thank you on that, I know now to subtract that so that will help... but that means that my nitrite showed again today

 

[Byron]

I have had nitrate most of the cycling process and I was using spring most of it

The spring water appears to have been the source of the ammonia and nitrate, so that answers that part.

But thank you on that, I know now to subtract that so that will help... but that means that my nitrite showed again today

I'm confused here...what nitrite?

Going back, the pH of the tap water is 6.6 so ammonia will be ammonium, basically harmless. However, when testing tap water for pH, you need to ensure the CO2 is out-gassed. CO2 can be present in tap water, and CO2 produces carbonic acid which lowers the pH. This is no problem, just something you have to allow for when testing tap water for pH. You out-gas the CO2 by letting a glass of tap water sit 245 hours, then test pH. It might be higher, depending upon the level of CO2. This out-gassing is not needed with aquarium water, just tap water.

 

[Emi Leigh]

Im sorry I have been trying to cycle and I had nitrite at 0 then it showed up for a couple days then was gone again and now its back