neupane00

i used tetra safestart 8 days ago. i have been monitoring water. And ammonia spiked to 1, but it has remained constant at 1 for last 3 days. there is no nitrite but the nitrate has increased. does that tell me that some of the ammonia is being converted to nitrite and right to nitrAte? (cuz ammonia is stalled at 1). at this point what do i expect? is that too much ammonia for bacteria to process? should i do water change to bring ammonia down? or should i just wait and see??

fishrule101

I think you should wait. There might not be enough bacteria to yet process the ammonia. Ammonia should always be at zero before adding fish. The nitrogen cycle can last from a few days to even months. Just continue to do partial water changes and regular testing and you should have a cycled tank soon.

MizRamzi

ditto on the water changes. But IMO it takes at least 4 weeks for a cycle to be complete. Yet that only depends on how your cycling. Fishless I hope. Even then you may get some spikes. I'm not familiar with tetra safe start so I don't know the content that they put in it to speed up the cycling process. For me, I've always used time, fish food, more time, more fish food and partial water changes weekly.

Amanda

Do you have fish in the tank? TSS needs fish to work, or some sort of ammonia. There will be a spike, but it's suggested not to do a WC for 7 days after the initial dose.

carlos413

NO water changes. If you added TSS I would just wait. Don't add any chems and no water changes I used TSS and my tank took 13 days to fully cycle, just hang in there. I would test daly and wright down your results so you can see the progress. Update us on your progress.

neupane00

hey guys, yeah fish in my tank. its the 9 day today. i will wait till 13 th day... carlos413: how did ur tank read on about 9-10 days? do u still have results? did u see ammonia spike and nitrIte spike?

carlos413

.25 ammonia 1 nitrite & 10 nitates

carlos413

You should be 0 0 5 to 15 when 100% cycled.

kimb

You got a lot of good advice on your other thread when you were at day 5. I know its hard but you have to have patience. This is why you wait out the full time until you test your water....Readings when using TSS before the full time are probably not accurate. Shawnie "queen of TSS" might be along to offer some more advice.