sick-lid boy

OK.. I've been doing a fishless cycle on a 12 gallon tank. I used bloodworms to get ammonia readings, and I stuck a bunch of filter fiber from a established tank and raised the water temp. to 82 degrees to speed up the whole process. I was getting really high nitrate readings the very first day... along with not-so-high ammonia and nitrite readings. After three days, I'm still getting readings for all three bacterias.
As of a few minutes ago the readings are:
Ammonia=between 0.25-0.50
Nitrite= between 0.25-0.50
Nitrate=20-40

Except for the nitrate (which I lowered by doing a couple 50% water changes) these readings have been about the same for three days.

#1. Is it normal to get readings for all three after nitrate has been present for at least 72 hours? I thought once you were getting nitrate readings, the other two bacterias were supposed to drop very soon after.

#2. Should I still be 'feeding' the ammonia with bloodworms even though I am getting nitrate readings?

#3. Is it just me, or is really tough to tell the differences between the colors on the API nitrate color chart? The ammonia and nitrite color cards are easy. Big difference between all the colors. But on the nitrate card, all colors between 20 and 160 look practically the same. Maybe I'm just color blind...

sick-lid boy

Bump. Anyone?

Gunnie

I'm at a loss. That's awful early to have readings like that. I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrates since you have no fish in the tank. How old is your master test kit?

sick-lid boy

I don't have a master test kit. I've had the individual nitrite & ammonia test kits for about 6 or 7 months and I just got the nitrate test kit when I got this new tank less than a week ago. I think the reason my nitrate levels were so high so early is because I used ALOT of filter media from the established tank- two little sponges from a little auxiliary filter I had in my 55 gallon tank plus I used a bunch of filter fiber from the canister filter in the same 55 gallon. Both the little sponges and the used fiber had been in that tank for a really long time.

The reason I'm kinda confused is because I've never used a nitrate test before. In the past, I just figured the tanks were cycled when the ammonia and nitrite reading dropped to zero... so I never knew how long the nitrate was in any of my other tanks before the bad bacteria started disappearing. All my other tanks I've always done weekly water changes without ever even testing for nitrates. So I'm new to this whole testing for nitrate thing.

Just tested the water again:

Ammonia=0.50 (I added a few bloodworms last night after testing)
Nitrite=0 (YAY!!)
Nitrate=20-40

So it looks good. I guess. I'll do a water change tomorrow morning, and then another test. If it looks like the ammonia's gone, I'm gonna assume the tank is ready..