Originally Posted by Melkor

About 36 days into my fishless cycle now. Been using Ace ammonia. Anywho, my bacteria can take 4ppm down to zero in 12 hours. And my nitrites are definitely converting nitrates too. My issue is that my ammonia reduction slowed down last week, and i didn't know why. Turns out my Ph had dropped down under 6, and i read the bacteria goes dormant or even dies around there. By the way, my true ph is 7.6, and my tank was keeping that until i added plants, and my bacteria started taking off. So i did big water change, got it back up, and my cycle picked right back up. But it went down again... So i thought about it and i figured it must be the one plant, which had some dying parts. So i removed that and did another change to bring ph back up. Seemed fine, but other plant was doing so so (diatoms on the leaves were killing the plant matter under it and was hard to see) and i removed that yesterday, another water change. I thought i would be fine now, all i have left is fake decor. But its going down again, but much slower.

So after looking through the forum archives, i came across something about high nitrates or nitrites creating acid. That is basically my only theory left to what is causing this. I know that my nitrites are sitting at 5+. My nitrates however jump very quickly, something like from 10ppm to 40+ (i honestly cant tell the difference past 40ppm on the test) in 24 hours. The ph drop does seem to correlate to the nitrates jumping up.

So does that seem like it might be the reason? Or does anyone else know what could be causing it? I really do not want to keep having this battle with ph, and stalling my cycle it is already hard enough waiting for fish. (Funny enough my family is more impatient than me and wants me to put fish in now, but i tell them that is cruel and definitely not happening)

Melkor

P.S. Just thought i would add my API liquid kit is new, and I'm doing it right, lots of shaking and direction following :P