The Missing Nitrite

[macphyter]

Couldn't find the question above so Ill ask it

 
Do you do water changes while you are cycling ?
Prob answer is "NO" but though I would ask...
 
As to your missing nitrite, did you test for nitrAte yet ?

 
No, I haven't been doing any water changes, and my nitrate has been steady at 5 ppm.  Maybe I should just leave the existing water in when I add the Dr. Tim's, since it already has 3 ppm of ammonia.

 

[macphyter]

   So I received the Dr Tim's I ordered yesterday, and I added it to the tank last night.  I also removed the carbon from my Aquaclear filter and added some floss.  Since the Dr Tim's contains both types of nitrifying bacteria, I was curious if I would ever see any nitrite, or if it would get converted to nitrate right away.  This morning I tested the water, roughly 12 hours after adding it.  The ammonia had gone down some, and I was seeing a little nitrite, just a little purple in the test.
 
Finally, I can confirm that my nitrite test kit actually works!  I'll do another test after it reaches 24 hours, and then I'll follow the instructions for the Dr Tim's.  The only conclusion I can reach from this is that I never had any nitrifying bacteria in my water to begin with, so the cycle just couldn't get started.  Has anyone ever heard of this happening to someone else?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

mac- it isn't likely that you had none, more likely is you had so few they would have taken a huge amount of time to reproduce. it is possible there were none especially if your water company had to do some sort of radical treatment or switched from chloramine to chlorine. The former works better on the nasty bacteria but not the nitrifiers. With chlorine the the nitrifiers are more at risk but it takes more time to penetrate the bio-film fully.
 
With Dr. Tims there is a process to follow;
 
1. Dose the tank to 2-3 ppm of ammonia.
2. Shake bottle and add all the bacteria. Turn off tank lights
3. Test in 24 hours and add 1/2 as much ammonia as the day before (do this no matter what the test result is)
4. Test as much as daily.
5. Somewhere around days 5-7 you should have 0/0.
6. When at 0/0, re-add the same amount you did on day one and test the following day (max 24 hours)
7. If you test  0/0, this means you are cycled and can add a full load of fish. If not,
8. Wait for 0/0 and repeat steps 5 and 6.
 
If it is working and you added to 2-3 ppm of ammonia it drops fast and you barely see nitrite which should also drop fast. The bacteria you added are alive and healthy, but they need to "wake up" to go to work. This can be very fast, or if they have been bottled a while, it can take a few hours or a day. Either way they have the same affect- only the time changes a bit.

 

[macphyter]

I'm still struggling to get my tank cycled, and here's what I've done since my last post:
 
I added Dr Tim's, and tried to follow the instructions to the letter.  I was expecting to have a fully cycled tank within 7 days, so I tested every day.  On day 7, It was sitting at ammonia 1.0 and nitrite 1.25, and had been there for 3 days straight.  I felt like my cycle had stalled, so I tried to figure out why.  I realized that it might be caused by using my soft water from the tap (from my water softener), instead of the raw city water.  I also discovered that my GH test was giving faulty results because my water was so soft to begin with.  The test turned green after the first drop, so it was actually too low to measure.  I tested some raw city water, and found:  KH-143.2 (8 drops), GH-214.8(12 drops).  I decided that I shouldn't be using the soft water, so I did an 80% water change using the raw city water.  I re-dosed it with ammonia back up to 3 ppm and waited.  Here's my results:
      (ammonia/nitrite)
day 7- 3.0 / 0.25  PH- 8.0  KH- 179  GH- 143.2
day 8- 2.0 / 0.5
day 9- 1.0 / 0.5
day 10- 1.0 / 1.25
day 11- 1.0 / 1.25
day 12- 0.5 / 2.0
day 13- 0.5 / 2.5  <-- at this point I re-dosed back up to 3 ppm
day 14- 2.0 / 2.5  PH- 8.0
 
So, I didn't get a quick cycle from using Dr Tim's like I expected, but now I'm getting nitrite production so I'm slowly making progress.  Maybe the soft water messed up the cycle, I'm not sure. I also realized that the dechlor I've been using (Aqueon water conditioner) is also supposed to detoxify ammonia.  Maybe this is slowing down my cycle as well, I'm not sure.  Should I go buy some Prime to use instead and do another water change?
 
I swear I'm going to cycle this tank, even if it kills me!  My kids are sick of staring at an empty aquarium, but I know it will happen eventually.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

OK Mac I am going to get a bit miffed with you here. The cycling directions on this site as well as the directions on Dr. tim's site for cycling and using bottled bacteria are both very clear on a few things.
 
1. Low pH can stall a cycle.
2. Low KH can stall a cycle ( i.e. soft water).
3. Too much ammonia or nitrite can stall a cycle or kill bacteria.
4. Ammonia detoxifiers will slow a cycle (Prime has these too).
5. Overdosing dechlors with ammonia/nitrite/nitrate detoxifiers will slow a cycle esp when overdosed.
 
So you have taken several steps to slow your cycle. Fortunately you have not killed it. Not using the softened water was the right move.Until you know how your house softener works, you probably should wait on fish.
 
Had you mentioned these things you just did before the Dr Tim's arrived, I would have told you how to have avoided them.
 
However, one thing puzzles me a bit. Your pH has not changed between the pre and post sotened waters. I would have expected for the inside tap to have a lower pH than the outside tap.
 
Do not dose any more ammonia until "whenever you test and ammonia is .25 ppm or lower and nitrite is clearly under 1 ppm, it is time to add a full ammonia dose again and test in 24 hours." that should be the stage of the cycle you are nearing.

 

[macphyter]

Believe me, there's enough frustration on my end for both of us.    Most of these details are clear, but I think there are a few subtle things that I missed.
 

OK Mac I am going to get a bit miffed with you here. The cycling directions on this site as well as the directions on Dr. tim's site for cycling and using bottled bacteria are both very clear on a few things.
 
1. Low pH can stall a cycle.
2. Low KH can stall a cycle ( i.e. soft water).
3. Too much ammonia or nitrite can stall a cycle or kill bacteria.
4. Ammonia detoxifiers will slow a cycle (Prime has these too).
5. Overdosing dechlors with ammonia/nitrite/nitrate detoxifiers will slow a cycle esp when overdosed.

 
regarding your points above:
1- My PH has never dropped below 8.0.  It measures 8.2 coming from the water softenter and 8.0 from the un-softened tap.
2- My KH has always measured high (196) coming out of the water softener.  However, my GH was so low, that it was impossible to measure with my kit.  In any case, this was my truly bone-headed mistake for using my soft water.  I think this has caused most of my problems.
3- My ammonia has never gone over 3.0 ppm, and my nitrite has never gone over 2.5 until just today.
4- I never realized my water conditioner was also de-toxifying ammonia until just recently.  The front label shows that it treats "chlorine and chloramine" and that's it.  The back label has some really tiny fine print at the bottom which mentions detoxifying ammonia, which I never noticed until now.
5- I don't believe I ever overdosed with dechlor, but I did not always let it sit for 24 hours.  Apparently this is OK for dechlors which do not detoxify ammonia, but not for mine. Are you suggesting that by not letting it sit for 24 hours, then I've "overdosed"?  Its possible I guess.
 
The Dr Tim's site doesn't seem to mention hard/vs soft water, but the guide on this forum is clear that KH should be above 55 ppm, and I had that coming out of the water softener.  Still, when I switched to my hard water, my cycle seemed to start up again.
 
On the bright side, no fish have been harmed, and that's the beauty of the fishless cycle, beginners like me can make mistakes.  My cycle appears to be progressing now, so I'm sure I'll get there eventually, thanks to all your help.

 

[daizeUK]

Hi Mac,
It's not necessary to let dechlorinator sit for 24 hours as far as I'm aware.  Dechlorinator should act very quickly if not instantly.  People used to leave buckets overnight without dechlorinator to 'gas off' the chlorine but this does not work for chloramines which are widely used these days, so there is little point in leaving the buckets to stand.
 
Your cycle will have slowed down due to the 80% water change but hopefully it will get back on track now!  Do not re-dose your ammonia unless your nitrite is under 1ppm (or if ammonia has been sitting at zero for 4-5 days then you give a small 1ppm maintenance dose, but hopefully that should not be necessary with a bacterial starter).

 

[macphyter]

So, it looks like my nitrite peaked, and then dropped to zero. 
 
3 days ago: 1.5 / 4.5
2 days ago: 0.5 / 2.5
1 day ago: 0.25 / 1.0
today: 0 / 0
 
I re-dosed it up to 3.0 ppm tonight, and then I'll measure again in 24 hours to see if it dropped to 0/0.  Ever since I did that water change and used the hard water, the cycle has been cruising along just like it should.  I might even be able to stock it with fish this week.  Yahoo!

 

[daizeUK]

Brilliant!

 

[ech0o]

So there it is, trying to cycle a tank with soft water is nay impossible!!

 

[macphyter]

So there it is, trying to cycle a tank with soft water is nay impossible!!

 
Impossible?  Perhaps.  Maybe it would just take much MUCH longer, but who has the patience for that. 

Brilliant!

 
Daize-  I never paid any attention to your avatar pic until my 8-year old son pointed it out to me.  Very clever.

 
Speaking of my son, he's been helping me with this whole process, and now he's going to school talking about ammonia and nitrite.  He says he wants to be a scientist now.  This has been a great way to get him interested in science!

 

[daizeUK]

Hehe Mickey Mouse platies were my first fish, chosen by me and my 6-yo son!
It's great that yours is into the science!  Smart kid

 

[Sophie]

A little late for the party but I read when nitrite is off the scale the water instantly turns purple after the first drop, I recall you mentioning Dr Tim saying it stayed blue? Curious.

 

[macphyter]

A little late for the party but I read when nitrite is off the scale the water instantly turns purple after the first drop, I recall you mentioning Dr Tim saying it stayed blue? Curious.

 
Once I had some actual nitrite in my test samples, I noticed that when it was high the first drop would show some purple, and after 5 drops, it was obviously purple even before shaking. 
 
In my earlier comments, I was referencing a video by Dr Tim, where he tested an extremely high nitrite sample using three different test kits, and two of them showed zero.  The video didn't show the test color very well at the moment the drops went in, but after shaking and sitting for 10 minutes, it was a "light blueish-green color", essentially zero on the chart.  Here's the video:
https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPiDRid_Km8&feature=player_embedded
 
He never actually tells us what concentration his test sample is, but in the video he performs a dilution test to show how to get the sample down into the useable range.  He doesn't actually give us the dilution rate, but he uses a pipette to add a small sample to a large flask of water, and I would guess it must be close to 200:1.  The API test kit result shows 1 ppm of nitrite in the resulting mixture.  This tells us that his sample must actually be 200 ppm, or whatever the actual dilution ratio is.  I can't believe that any sort of fishless cycle could reach this level of concentration because it would require a huge amount of ammonia, which would probably kill the nitrifying bacteria to start with.
 
I believe he's using an extreme example to prove a point, but now that I've got some experience with the test kit, I don't think any of us have to worry about reaching the point where the API test kit gives a false zero.  In practice we can just watch for the extreme purple color.  If it looks off the chart, then we should try diluting our sample by 5:1 or 10:1 to find the real value.  Even when my nitrite peaked at 4.5 ppm, I had a little trouble discerning the exact color match, so I diluted it down at 5:1 and I was easily able to match the color, and then multiply by 5.

 

[Fishmanic]

what brand dechlor did you use?