Howlong Now?

[chris1804]

how long into thecycle does it take fore nitrite to fall? mines been on 5ppm for 3-4weeks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it can be quite stubborn, how quickly is your ammonia processing to 0?

 

[waterdrop]

Some people estimate that you can take the time it took your A-Bacs to drop ammonia to zero the first time and double that time as a minimum, but our following of cases here in the beginners section seems to continue to support there being wild variation in the amount of time for any given phase of any given individual fishless or fish-in cycle. There are just plenty of factors we are unable to measure or monitor. Remember, we're only testing and watching the most gross and measureable things, there are plenty of other things essentially hidden to us (take for example the fact that the two species of autotrophs we always talk about are only two among probably dozens or more of other species of both autotrophs and heterotrophs that are making a home in the tank - there's a lot of biochemistry going on that we are not measuring.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[chris1804]

it can be quite stubborn, how quickly is your ammonia processing to 0?

well after the first 5ppm of ammonia thgat took about a week to drop to 0 then 24 hours after that but now the ammonia is taking longer than 24 hours this is about my 4th week in

 

[waterdrop]

I tried but failed to find any fishless cycling logs in any of your previous threads. Have you been monitoring pH periodically and if so what sort of trends has it shown? It also could be that your NO2 and NO3 could be so high that it is inhibiting your N-Bacs from growing as fast, calling for a full gravel-clean-water-change with ammonia recharge. Sometimes that re-kickstarts things. If you've had any periods where you dosed ammonia more freqently than at the 24 hour mark or you didn't wait for ammonia to drop all the way to zero ppm before re-dosing then that can add to nitrite and nitrate getting to high (or if you've continued to dose 5ppm during the nitrite spike, rather than 2 or 3ppm as we usually suggest as we watch the daily logs.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[BigIan]

It sound to me as if your Cycle may have stalled. This can happen for many reasons, Such as your ph dropping to near 6, nitrite and nitrate levels could be to high, this also inhibits the growth of the N-bacs.

I would also recomend a massive water cahnge 90%+ to reset everything to 0