scotty027
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- Jan 17, 2017
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Hello everyone, i need some advice on fishless cycling.I'll give information about my tank before stating the problem.
46 gallon
running a penguin 150 biowheel and a fluval c4 hob filter
planted
tap water readings 0/0/0
ammonia-old country (5 percent)
Lots of seeding material
So i'm in the process of doing my first fishless cycle, everything was going great.
Day 1- put ammonia up to 4 ppm
Day 3- Ammonia .25 ppm,nitrite 2 ppm, nitrate 0 ppm. topped ammonia back up to 3 ppm
Day 5- Ammonia 0 ppm, nitrite off the charts unreadable, nitrates 80 ppm.
This is where i started having problems. In my research most places say to do a partial water change at this point cause to high of nitrites can kill of bacteria. So i did a 50 percent change. It brought nitrates down to 40 but nitrites were still unreadable, so i did another 50 percent change. No change in readings. Did another 50 percent change. No change in readings. Finnally got frustrated and did about a 90 percent change. Finally brought my readings down to ammonia-0 ppm,nitrite, .25 ppm, nitrate 10 ppm.
So i dosed ammonia back up to 2 ppm, tested 12 hours later, ammonia 0, nitrites off the charts unreadable,nitrates 40 ppm.
What the heck is going on? why are my Nitrites so out of control?
46 gallon
running a penguin 150 biowheel and a fluval c4 hob filter
planted
tap water readings 0/0/0
ammonia-old country (5 percent)
Lots of seeding material
So i'm in the process of doing my first fishless cycle, everything was going great.
Day 1- put ammonia up to 4 ppm
Day 3- Ammonia .25 ppm,nitrite 2 ppm, nitrate 0 ppm. topped ammonia back up to 3 ppm
Day 5- Ammonia 0 ppm, nitrite off the charts unreadable, nitrates 80 ppm.
This is where i started having problems. In my research most places say to do a partial water change at this point cause to high of nitrites can kill of bacteria. So i did a 50 percent change. It brought nitrates down to 40 but nitrites were still unreadable, so i did another 50 percent change. No change in readings. Did another 50 percent change. No change in readings. Finnally got frustrated and did about a 90 percent change. Finally brought my readings down to ammonia-0 ppm,nitrite, .25 ppm, nitrate 10 ppm.
So i dosed ammonia back up to 2 ppm, tested 12 hours later, ammonia 0, nitrites off the charts unreadable,nitrates 40 ppm.
What the heck is going on? why are my Nitrites so out of control?