Is This Normal During Cycling?

[jo_85]

I'm back again with another question.....
I've been cycling my tank now for around 4 weeks, I think i'm in my final stage. My nitrite spike happened around 7 days ago and is currently taking around 18 hours to drop to 0ppm. My nitrates have been off the chart since the spike. So i'm just waiting patiently for it to get to 12 hours. What I need to know is whether the cycle process damages plants? I bought 4 plants just before I started my cycle and one of them is more or less dead. It has brown marks all over it and gone really thin at the edges. I'm not too worried as I will replace these once it is all complete, they were a last minute buy as the shop didn't have any nice ones in at the time. Just need to know if this is normal?

 

[abih2005]

Well the tank is effectively poisoning it - the nitrates will be off the charts due to their disintegration and subsequent effect on levels of waste. I had the same thing and took them out but that's just me.

 

[the biffster]

can i ask a daft question
what is you ammonia level at

ammonia

nitrite

nitrate

 

[jo_85]

I'm dosing it up to 4ppm every 24 hours, it has dropped back to 0ppm every 12 hours. Nitrites are taking around 18 hours to drop to 0ppm, after 12 hours there 4ppm. Nitrates are well off the chart

 

[the biffster]

every thing seems to be going to plan
how long have you been cycling for now

 

[jo_85]

Started on the 24th september, will probably just leave the plants in until the cycle has completed and put new ones in ready for the fish

 

[the biffster]

Started on the 24th september, will probably just leave the plants in until the cycle has completed and put new ones in ready for the fish

your nitrates are controlled by water changes
if your tanks is cycled you should now be doing
regular water changes 25% every week /two weeks

 

[jo_85]

Hi, new question. My PH is slowly dropping as i'm waiting for the final stage of the cycle. Its gone from 8.2 to around 7.2/7.4. Is this ok? I know if it crashes to 6 it will stall the cycle. So do I need to I act now or hang on until it gets lower? I've heard of using baking soda? My tap water PH is around 8.2 so would a water change affect the cycle? Sorry to be a pain its just my cycle seems to be dragging now and want to do everything I can to keep it on the move. Thanks.

 

[Timmy_Bee]

i wouldnt worry unless it drops to 6 (as you said) but then yes - eith do a water change or use some bi carb

 

[roadmaster]

I'm back again with another question.....
I've been cycling my tank now for around 4 weeks, I think i'm in my final stage. My nitrite spike happened around 7 days ago and is currently taking around 18 hours to drop to 0ppm. My nitrates have been off the chart since the spike. So i'm just waiting patiently for it to get to 12 hours. What I need to know is whether the cycle process damages plants? I bought 4 plants just before I started my cycle and one of them is more or less dead. It has brown marks all over it and gone really thin at the edges. I'm not too worried as I will replace these once it is all complete, they were a last minute buy as the shop didn't have any nice ones in at the time. Just need to know if this is normal?

Were it me,(and it's not) I would reduce the amount of ammonia added each day by one half and test after 12 hours. If readings for nitrite were still above zero, I would continue with the drops at half dose until the nitrites fell to zero within twelve hours.
Even at half dose once nitrites appear,the ammonia levels will be far higher than fish will ever see and continuing with the ammonia at levels to keep 4or 5 ppm can often lead to prolonged completion of establishing sufficient bacteria to handle the waste from fishes added.
To be safe,,would not plan on loading the tank too heavily at once .(does anybody really do this?)
Has worked well for me in the past and can knock off perhaps a few days to a week .

 

[anon02]

Irrespective of whatever else is happening in your tanks, brown rotting vegetation is not a good thing, you need to remove anything that is obviously dead asap

 

[waterdrop]

In the third stage (when ammonia is dropping to zero in 12 hours and nitrite is still somewhere more than 12 but less than 24 before it drops to zero) once you've passed the point where enormous amounts of nitrate(NO3) are produced, I'd start performing some thorough gravel-clean-water-changes (I typically think of people doing this on a weekend) that take the water down to the substrate until the siphon gets air. This will allow the N-Bacs to see a fresher environment, with less nitrate and nitrite concentration.

As far along as you are, it does become time to consider what sort of initial stocking you'll be doing. Once the N-Bac colony is large enough to start bumping up against the 12 hour drop, it doesn't make sense to keep waiting for perfection if you know you'll only stock down toward 50% or so by the inch guideline measure. If you're going to fully stock then yes, you'd want to really not see any traces at 12 hours, but smaller stockings are unlikely to see big mini-spikes if you're ending point was close to 12 hours and the overall fishless cycle was more than a month or month and a half.

The vast majority of fishless cyclers we see through here will have a few species that would be better introduced to a more mature tank (often a 6-month tank) rather than in the initial stocking right after fishless cycling (neons and GBRs are the classic examples.) The end of a fishless cycle and beginning of the initial period with fish is really just a "hand-off" of the cycling process - the nitrogen cycle is key driver of the other cycles and chemical processes in a mature tank environment but there are other ones that will mature and adjust all during the first year of a new tank's life. Once the very slow process of the autotrophs getting established properly in the filter has been accomplished, the very fast heterotrophs can easily adjust themselves to their job of breaking down organics into ammonia and various organic molecules that are the components of mulm can collect in greater amounts in their various hideaways, contributing to the much more complex environment that is a truly mature tank.

~~waterdrop~~