Fishless Cycling Question

[GoGators]

Tonights tests,
PH- high range 7.4-7.8, low range 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 5+
Nitrates 5-10

The nitrite didn't turn purple as soon as the drops were added, it took till the drops sat on the bottom of the tube today. It has been changing as soon as the drops hit the water.

 

[waterdrop]

So that could be a sign that nitrites are beginning to drop some, even though the basic official test is still maxed out, the behavior of the drops kind of gives hints like that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

Today just for kicks I added 5 ml of my tank water to 75 ml of 0 nitrite tap water. I figured I could run a nitrite test on that and multiply the reading x 16 and know roughly where the nitrites are. It was a little less than 5 so 5x16=80 ppm. Wednesday I'm going to do a 90% water change and see what the nitrites are at then.
Today results
Amm. 0 after 12 hours
Nitrite 80
Ph 7.6 low range, 7.4-7.8 high range (closer to 7.4)

 

[GoGators]

90% water change done! I learned something about API test kits today. Off the chart nitrates turn brown when bottle 1 is added. I thought my nitrates were 5-10, it turns out they were off the chart and have been for over a week. Nitrites are readable now. I'm thinking the cycle is almost done but I'll know for sure tomorrow. Added my normal 65 drops of ammonia and now it's waiting time again.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.5-1
Nitrate 20
PH 7.8

 

[waterdrop]

Good! Water changes can help when nitrates are high near the end of a cycle.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

0 Nitrite, 0 ammonia, 20-40 nitrate, PH 7.6. It took 27 days but they're 0 at 12 hours. Is 3 days long enough to wait or do I need to go the full 5 of being 0 at 12 hours? That water change did the trick. I should have listened earlier. I'm so happy now I need to figure out what fish to get. I've got Black substrate with black background, 7 plants, driftwood leaning on a piece of slate. I want some red and some blue fish plus a king tiger pleco. I'm open to most colors of fish just nothing that looks like a colored minnow (just a personal preference). Stocking suggestions please!

 

[waterdrop]

Since your stocking list is not completely figured out, I'd use that as an excuse to grab some more days of insurance. The reason for the qualifying week was that we were still getting a fair number of cases where the cycle would give another blip when you thought it was fully there. Each day of studying your stocking will be doubly valuable as you both refine that list and you hopefully gain another "double-zero at 12 hours" day.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

I'm glad I waited. Today my nitrites are 5ppm. PH is between 7.6 and 7.4. What happened? Is this high of a respike normal? I'll test at 24 hours but this worries me.

 

[GoGators]

At 20 hours my results
Ammonia 0
Nitrite .5
Nitrate 40-80
PH 7.4-7.6

The nitrite at 3 pm was 5+ ppm (I checked it twice) at 9 pm it was .5 ppm (also checked twice). Thanks for the advice WD, I'm glad I took your advice. That would of sucked if fish were in there when it spiked again!

 

[waterdrop]

Right, they would have suffered some pretty nasty nerve damage in nitrite(NO2) like that, even if they'd lived!

OK, so I keep trying to tell people that this is not a big deal! Fishless cycling is just like this! It's better to just go along with these little "methods" we've gradually built up here in the "New to the Hobby" forum and be dispassionate about it! Features like "the qualifying week" did not come about from people being excessive about fishless cycling, they came about because they really do "catch" some of these situations where the bacterial colonies are not really ready and our readings have "fooled" us.

Anyway, glad this saved you! You're probably in truth very close to the end. Probably you just have a very big A-Bac colony capable of quickly producing a ton of nitrite(NO2) (for each 1ppm of ammonia they eat they produce 2.7ppm of nitrite(NO2) after all!) and your N-Bac colony is capable of eating a lot but just not quite that much yet!

Watch out for pH drops to 6.2 or below or nitrate(NO3) readings that jump up to 160ppm or above at this late stage (which would call for a good large gravel-clean-water-change-ammonia-recharge) but otherwise just proceed as normal!

~~waterdrop~~