Nitrates And The Fishless Cycle

[Joanna69]

Hello

I'm currently cycling my tank (63 litres) and 2 1/2 weeks in. I'm adding ammonia every day at the moment to get it to 5ppm, with it being 0 the next day. My nitrites WERE high up till today but when I tested this a.m the ammonia was back down to 0 (as usual) the nitrites were down to 2ppm (they were way off the scale only yesterday) BUT my nitrates are minimal (5ppm) and haven't budged.

When should I expect my nitrates to spike? Given the ammonia is being topped up every day but used up by the next and my nitrites have spiked and are now coming down, I would have thought my nitrates would have kicked in by now. I have real plants in my tank. Will this affect things?

Or am I being impatient? I'm glad the ammonia is coming down to 0 every day and that my nitrites have spiked and are coming down. But weird no nitrates yet. Or is it?

Cheers

Jo

 

[Ginge]

Well if your tank can get 5ppm of ammonia down to 0 i 12 hours and you have jsut had your nitrite spike then as soon as nitrite reaches 0 then i think you are done. I think there is usually a nitrate spike though???

 

[djloach]

Well if your tank can get 5ppm of ammonia down to 0 i 12 hours and you have jsut had your nitrite spike then as soon as nitrite reaches 0 then i think you are done. I think there is usually a nitrate spike though???

You should see nitrates rise as nitrites fall but if you have a lot of fast growing plants in your aquarium they could be using up a lot of the nitrates or even the ammonia and nitrites before they can get converted to nitrates.