Nitrites Appeared!

[mike45]

I have been fishless cycling for 10 days, I recently found out I wasn't adding enough ammonia, I have added 20 drops the last two days and yesterday my nitrites were about .05 ammonia was 4-5 ppm , today I added 25 drops of ammonia,(I was told to in another post of mine), and my nitrites are at .4 and my ammonia is at 7-8 ppm. Should I cut my ammonia dose in half..or wait?

 

[tstenback]

Hi i'm baaaaack. you will see very high ammoonia readings. we took a guess yesterday based on what you told us happened and that was just to establish a base line. i think that it would be fine to drop the dose to about 15 or so. Nice to have nitrites, i guess. Now is when you need patience and lots of them the nitrite spike is the longest (read as excruciatingly painful )part of the cycle. Hang in there and dont worry about how high the ammonia gets. we can get rid of it all if there is any left when we do the 90% water change when this is all over. Good Luck

 

[mike45]

Well, instead of making a new post, I'll just add on to this old post. Okay, so it's been four days with nitrites. The first day that I had nitrites, I had .05 nitrites, and 4-5 ppm ammonia. Next day, I had .4 nitrites and 7-8 ppm ammonia. The next day, I cut my ammonia dosage to 10 drops ( I had been adding 25 the other days), I had 1-11 nitrites and 4-5 ppm ammonia. Today, added 10 drops of ammonia and I have 1-11 nitrites and .50 ammonia. I have some questions. 1)Approximately how much longer until I will be done fishless cycling? 2)When do I start testing for nitrates?

Oh and I have another problem. I was turning on my light during the day, for the live plant I have in the tank, but I started getting pretty bad algae, mostly on the ESTABLISHED gravel from my 29 gallon, and on my decorations, now the algae has spread to some of the other gravel too. But its like almost sticky algae that looks like its making the gravel connect to each other. What should I do about this?

Thank You.

 

[tstenback]

Looks like things are going just fine Remember this

the nitrite spike is the longest (read as excruciatingly painful )part of the cycle.

Well my friend you have just about completed the ammonia spike. Now comes the nitrite spike so you have a while to go yet. and you can start testing for nitrates any time now.

What color is the algae? If it is brown dont worry it will go away by itself or if you get real annoyed you can scrape it off the glass and rub it off the plant but dont mess with your gravel too much yet as this is where some of your bacteria is trying to establish. If its green leave the light off during the day and only use it for a few hours in the evening, the plant will be OK for a while. HTH

 

[Sky042]

Well, instead of making a new post, I'll just add on to this old post. Okay, so it's been four days with nitrites. The first day that I had nitrites, I had .05 nitrites, and 4-5 ppm ammonia. Next day, I had .4 nitrites and 7-8 ppm ammonia. The next day, I cut my ammonia dosage to 10 drops ( I had been adding 25 the other days), I had 1-11 nitrites and 4-5 ppm ammonia. Today, added 10 drops of ammonia and I have 1-11 nitrites and .50 ammonia. I have some questions. 1)Approximately how much longer until I will be done fishless cycling? 2)When do I start testing for nitrates?

Oh and I have another problem. I was turning on my light during the day, for the live plant I have in the tank, but I started getting pretty bad algae, mostly on the ESTABLISHED gravel from my 29 gallon, and on my decorations, now the algae has spread to some of the other gravel too. But its like almost sticky algae that looks like its making the gravel connect to each other. What should I do about this?

Thank You.

well it's gonna be hard to tell how long you've got in the nitrite phase since your readings are FAR from specific enough. 1ppm of nitrite isn't much and it could be just a day or two. 11ppm of nitrite is enough to kill fish and could mean you've got 3-4 weeks left. You need to know your specific nitrite level

 

[mike45]

My TetraTec, nitrite chart says dark red is from 1-11, I am guessing it is close to 11, as it is very dark red. And the algae is green, so I'll just turn off light during the day and leave it on for a couple of hours.

 

[tstenback]

sounds like you are moving along fine and yah just leave the lights on for a while in the mornign if you have the time and in the evening until you go to bed that should support the plants fine. Also if you want to speed things up now if you can get some filter material from an established tank it would really help now, as would gravel if you cant get filter material. HTH

 

[mike45]

Okay, now I have a question about filter media. I have two different types of filters, one an aqua clear 300 (on my 29 gallon) with a sponge, carbon, and ammonia removal bags. The other is a whisper filter with one long bag with everything in it, I guess. Is it okay just to squeeze my aquaclear's established filter sponge into the water of my 10 gallon tank, or is that wrong, because thats what I did last time.

Thanks