Little Cherry Barb

My tank is currently cycling fishless (Its been a couple weeks now), and these have been the readings for the past couple of days. The last nitrate reading seems a little weird to me, and I can't find any explanation. I'm using the API liquid tests.

2 days ago: ammonia was at 5.0, nitrite was at 1.0 and Nitrate was at 50
Yesterday: Ammonia was at 0, Nitrite was at 1.0 and Nitrate was at 50

So I added more ammonia to see how fast it would get down to zero. I added enough drops to get it to about 4.

Today: Ammonia was nearly 0 (yellow with a slight greenish tinge), Nitrite was 1.0, and the Nitrate was 10! It was yellow orange, rather than the deep red that I've had for awhile now. Why would my nitrate suddenly go down?

Background info: When I started cycling, I added way too much ammonia (The test reading was 8.0, but that was the limit on the test, so could it have been higher?), so I just left it to see what it would do. The ammonia steadily creeped down to zero, while it was doing that I saw my first nitrite reading of .25, then .50, then 1. Shortly after, I got slowly rising nitrate readings. I have no live plants.

EDIT: Oh, and I did the Nitrate test twice, and it was still 10. I thought maybe I added too many drops or didn't shake it long enough, but I did it again and it was the same.

David C

the nitrate bottle #2 needs to be shaken really hard in order to get an accurate reading. I smack mine on the table several times to break up the crystals and then shake for several minutes until my arms hurt... that could easily account for the readings

jdhef

Sometimes the solids drop out of the liquid in bottle #2 of the Nitrate reagent and will cause a low reading. It has been recommended that you shake bottle #2 for a full minute and pound it against the palm of you hand or a hard surface.

It seems a little unusual though that your nitrates would be reading 50 before your nitrites zeroed. Since it is the nitrites that covert to nitrates. To me, 10 seems like the right number for where you are in the cycle.

I would watch my nitrates for a few days, and if the stay around 10, or rise slightly, I would think that the reading is good. I wonder if the overdosing of ammonia early on affected the nitrate readings, making them high.

EDIT: Post above mine wasn't there when I started my reply. Sorry for the duplicate info.

Lucy

There were a couple members who OD'd their tank with ammonia during a fishless cycle.
They may be able to help you further.
If I remember correctly, they had a hard time getting the nitrites to 0. I think in the end, they decided to do a water change to get the nitrites to 0. Added a little ammonia, waited 24 hrs and retested. If the ammonia has been processed and you have readings of 0,0 with some nitrates showing, you should be good to go.

Something to keep in mind, bacteria needs ammonia to grow, on the other hand, too much ammonia will kill the bacteria.

Good luck.

pepetj

Little Cherry Barb: I remember your first days. I'm really glad to hear from you again, you have done a good fishless cycle. Any day soon (I know it looks forever) your nitrite spike will fade down.

Don't worry about fluctuations in nitrates at this point. Your tank has the bacteria it needs to brake down ammonia into nitrites. That's why you have a reading of 1.0ppm (a spike). Keep adding half Xdrops of ammonia solution until the second type of bacteria, the one that brakes down nitrites gets stablished. Once that happen, your nitrites reading will dissappear, drop to zero, zippo, nada... and nitrates will rise.

Only at that time, nitrates readings become relevant (they will be present as in your actual scenario, that only means the nitrite spike is about to end), just wait for a day, or two or three, you're almost there!

If you don't do a water change, and keep feeding the tank with ammonia solution, you could obtain sustained readings of let's say 100ppm easily. Of course you don't need to do that, you want to do a water change and add your fish.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Little Cherry Barb

Thanks for the replies. I tested again just a little while ago and got 0 ammonia, 1 nitrites, and 10 nitrates. I shook the bottle really hard this time, too.

Thanks for the info. Should I go ahead and do the water change, or continue adding ammonia and waiting for the nitrites to go down?

Lucy

Still feed the tank, not much though. It takes a while for the nitrite stage, so wait for a water change to see if your really stalled.