Ammonia 0, Nitrite 1.0, Nitrate 5-10 Please Help Us!!

The non digital heaters are calibrated with spring tension or something (don't quote me) and often they aren't done well so you have to use some trial and error. I've had heaters which I set to their version of 25 and it's 30. Some where you set to 25 and it's 23 or something.

Thermometers can be dodgy too. I've found the floating glass ones to always be a bit off. Fluval sticker ones are hard to read. The marina ones I always use now because they are at the very least consistent with eachother, and consistent with a few of my heaters. I stick them on the outside of my buckets to water change to correct temp. If it is one temp on one bucket and I pour it into another bucket it is the same temp reading. So I have them on virtually every tank and (will) have on every bucket.

 

Today’s levels!!!!!
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite .50ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
Is this good??

 

Too me it looks really good. You have a trace amount of nitrites and showing nitrates. This tells you that your cycle is good.

 

Too me it looks really good. You have a trace amount of nitrites and showing nitrates. This tells you that your cycle is good.

Shouldn’t nitrites be 0 before we call it good? Should we still do a water changes and double dose prime?

Did water change and all fish gasping hope they don’t die

 

Today’s levels!!!!!
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite .50ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
Is this good??

My predictions have come true! Are they gasping still? You can relax with the water changes for a few days, just use a normal dose of prime.

 

My predictions have come true! Are they gasping still? You can relax with the water changes for a few days, just use a normal dose of prime.

They were gasping bad tonight.. broke my heart. Not sure why. Just one of the mollies was. The one that never does was on the top this time. For like an hour I’d say.

 

Add the Prime to the new water BEFORE you put it into your tank.

 

Add the Prime to the new water BEFORE you put it into your tank.

We do put it in the buckets before we put in tank.

 

There may be something else causing your fish to gasp besides the Nitrogen Cycle. My fish experienced worse and never had a problem with them gasping. But I also made sure my tank had a lot of water flow with a good HOB, sponge filter, and big air stone, all at the same time.

 

It actually sounds like she's on the right track really. The key is...patience. You cannot and should not rush or hasten nature, even within an aquarium. Keep doing what you're doing and things will be just fine before you know it. Doing the same thing right now as we speak: Very high nitrite levels--About 4-5.0 here! Just...part of the cycle is all. Keep us advised please.

Oh, and performing 50% water changes super frequently may also slow down the cycle significantly, as there's a high probability that you will destroy a lot of BB. : ( What I do is 10% water changes MAX, every other day...sometimes even only every 2-3 days. And a contributing facotr relayed to judgement is the size of the tank and it's current bioload.

What Prime primarily does (sorry for the cheesy pun lol) is bonds all the bad/harmful chemical molecules and factors together, therefore creating a TEMPORARY (emphasizing the word temporary!) "shield" for your fish. It renders the bad chemicals non-toxic, and will NOT outright remove them. It only neutralizes the ill effects is all.

 

It actually sounds like she's on the right track really. The key is...patience. You cannot and should not rush or hasten nature, even within an aquarium. Keep doing what you're doing and things will be just fine before you know it. Doing the same thing right now as we speak: Very high nitrite levels--About 4-5.0 here! Just...part of the cycle is all. Keep us advised please.

Oh, and performing 50% water changes super frequently may also slow down the cycle significantly, as there's a high probability that you will destroy a lot of BB. : ( What I do is 10% water changes MAX, every other day...sometimes even only every 2-3 days. And a contributing facotr relayed to judgement is the size of the tank and it's current bioload.

What Prime primarily does (sorry for the cheesy pun lol) is bonds all the bad/harmful chemical molecules and factors together, therefore creating a TEMPORARY (emphasizing the word temporary!) "shield" for your fish. It renders the bad chemicals non-toxic, and will NOT outright remove them. It only neutralizes the ill effects is all.

Hmmm. I was told on this forum that I should be doing a ton of 50% water changes with high nitrite. But then it never even went down so we were like what is going on. Now that we’ve been doing 25% it’s going down! Wouldn’t skipping a day cause our fish to be in the high nitrite levels without doing a water change with prime? Doesn’t prime only work for 24 hours? Not sure but scared if we don’t do a water change they might die. They are fine this morning. Not gasping.

There may be something else causing your fish to gasp besides the Nitrogen Cycle. My fish experienced worse and never had a problem with them gasping. But I also made sure my tank had a lot of water flow with a good HOB, sponge filter, and big air stone, all at the same time.

Could be why. I need to get some more water flow. Only thing we have is the filter. The one gasping seems to breathe heavily after a water change. Not sure if she’s just stressed over the change or there isn’t enough oxygen. She never used to be that way. She is normal this morning.

 

And whenever you have high nitrites, it basically means that the fish are suffocating. Perhaps opt for an air stone to relieve some of their situation.

 

And whenever you have high nitrites, it basically means that the fish are suffocating. Perhaps opt for an air stone to relieve some of their situation.

That’s so sad our nitrites are almost gone. .50 yesterday. Hoping it goes to 0 fast

 

Nitrites are generally the very slowest to decrease....thus, just be patient. Mine aren't even close to 2 yet, mine are at 3-5.0! *AGH*...really sucks..

 

Nitrites are generally the very slowest to decrease....thus, just be patient. Mine aren't even close to 2 yet, mine are at 3-5.0! *AGH*...really sucks..

How do you keep your fish safe when you wait 2-3 days to do a water change?

 

About that custom media comment. One of my tanks has

It has two slots for or similar.

This is sub optimal for us as fish keepers. These things catch debris and you need to squeeze them. Trouble is they aren't designed to be squeezed clean then reinserted (you can a bit but it's more likely to damage it). They want you to replace them every x weeks. This means you lose all the bacteria on the thing you're throwing out.

What you can do alternatively is buy filter foam, cut it to size and just put it in. It's more media, and you can take it out, swish and squeeze off the debris in taken out tank water, and put it back in. It'll last until it falls apart. What I do in this particular filter is throw some seachem matrix at the bottom, use filter wool at the intake. I need to get filter foam for it tbh!

In response to the post on my profile (it's too long to post there):
The nitrate is fine, you should find out the max level of nitrite you should tolerate while doing a fish-in cycling though. It needs to be there for the cycle to complete so you can't eliminate all of it. So if you find out the max you should have it at is 0.25 and it is 0.5, doing a 50% water change should dilute it to 0.25.

Have you tested your tap water nitrate? Just to make sure nitrite is becoming nitrate yet.

At this point it's really just a waiting game.

There is definitely going to be a maximum "safe" limit for your fish though but I don't know what it is sorry! Please Someone chime in

 

In response to the post on my profile (it's too long to post there):
The nitrate is fine, you should find out the max level of nitrite you should tolerate while doing a fish-in cycling though. It needs to be there for the cycle to complete so you can't eliminate all of it. So if you find out the max you should have it at is 0.25 and it is 0.5, doing a 50% water change should dilute it to 0.25.

Have you tested your tap water nitrate? Just to make sure nitrite is becoming nitrate yet.

At this point it's really just a waiting game.

There is definitely going to be a maximum "safe" limit for your fish though but I don't know what it is sorry! Please Someone chime in

Our tap has 0 nitrate and 0 nitrites. I am scared to do another water change after all the gasping last night from the 25% water change. I saw some gasping today too. Should we do 50 then? I have no idea what to do next.

Our tap has 0 nitrate and 0 nitrites. I am scared to do another water change after all the gasping last night from the 25% water change. I saw some gasping today too. Should we do 50 then? I have no idea what to do next.

I think I saw the safe limit was under 1.

 

Nah, 0.5 is fine then if 1 is meant to be the safe limit.

 

Nah, 0.5 is fine then if 1 is meant to be the safe limit.

I now read .25 is the limit.? Not sure what to go by. One of our fish has been breathing heavily though and gasping. Wondering if she is suffering from the nitrite. I think we will probably do our normal water change just not dose prime 5x the recommended dose. I don’t know what to do. 25 or 50%. Then someone else said to just leave it. But nitrite at .50 is still harmful to fish.

 

Any nitrite is harmful to fish. Fish in cycling is about hoping the cycle finishes before the fish die. It's probably nearly there now that you're seeing nitrates.

If you're still worried do a 50% water change and only feed every other day.

 

Any nitrite is harmful to fish. Fish in cycling is about hoping the cycle finishes before the fish die. It's probably nearly there now that you're seeing nitrates.

If you're still worried do a 50% water change and only feed every other day.

We did a 50% water change with normal dose of prime and stability and it went to .25!

 

Cool. You can set a target and work it out btw.

Say you have 30 nitrate and you want 10, you need to do a 66% water change.

If you have 0.5 nitrite and you want 0.1 you need to do an 80% water change.

 

Cool. You can set a target and work it out btw.

Say you have 30 nitrate and you want 10, you need to do a 66% water change.

If you have 0.5 nitrite and you want 0.1 you need to do an 80% water change.

Would we still need to try and get that down tomorrow? You said we still need some kind of nitrite to complete the cycle right?

 

Yes you need some to complete it. You actually won't be able to get rid of it because the ammonia reducing bacteria will keep converting ammonia to nitrite.

The more nitrite present in the water, the faster the bacteria which convert nitrite to nitrate can multiply.

 

I give up.
Ammonia 0-.25
Nitrite 1.0
Nitrate 5.

 

Don't worry, it won't add a day to your life. Just be patient. I wouldn't bother dosing anymore stability btw.

 

Why is our ammonia going up now? I’m so confused. We made so much progress now it’s going back up again.

 

Nicole I think you're getting close!! Hang in there!!

 

Nicole I think you're getting close!! Hang in there!!

From our levels yesterday to now higher ones? We are doing something wrong

 

Go to a pet shop or a friend with an aquarium and ask for a little bit of the filter media they are running (make sure their tanks are healthy!). Put it in your filter and your tank will cycle in 24 hrs. Stability is a joke compared to using someones filter pad. I honestly don't think it works at all. I used it for a month on a new tank and couldnt get past nitrites. Put some media from another tank in and BAM. Done.

 

Go to a pet shop or a friend with an aquarium and ask for a little bit of the filter media they are running (make sure their tanks are healthy!). Put it in your filter and your tank will cycle in 24 hrs. Stability is a joke compared to using someones filter pad. I honestly don't think it works at all. I used it for a month on a new tank and couldnt get past nitrites. Put some media from another tank in and BAM. Done.

We only have a walmart and petco and I don’t trust either! lol!

 

Well where did you buy your fish from. If those fish are living through a fish in cycle I'm sure the tanks can't be that bad.

 

Well where did you buy your fish from. If those fish are living through a fish in cycle I'm sure the tanks can't be that bad.

Petco. Fish don’t look bad but the advice they gave us our fish would of most likely died if I didn’t get on this forum.

 

Petco. Fish don’t look bad but the advice they gave us our fish would of most likely died if I didn’t get on this forum.

You don't have to trust the employees knowledge to trust there is bacteria pouring out of the filter media in the back. I'm just trying to give you the easiest way out of this so you don't keep ripping your hair out. Then you can actually sit back and enjoy fishkeeping.

 

You don't have to trust the employees knowledge to trust there is bacteria pouring out of the filter media in the back. I'm just trying to give you the easiest way out of this so you don't keep ripping your hair out. Then you can actually sit back and enjoy fishkeeping.

Very true. Might have to go that route if we keep having problems!

 

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I've done many fish-in cycles without any additives. Every single time I see people having trouble with cycles not progressing like they should, they're dumping in all sorts of "starters" or other chemicals. Many if not most of those additives have chemicals to neutralize ammonia and nitrites. The problem is you need ammonia and nitrites for the tank to cycle.

I disagree with the advice to use five times the recommended dosage of Prime or other water conditioner.

Every tank I cycled, I let nature take its course. I'd put in fish, feed them, do 25% water changes every other day, and monitor the parameters with an API Master Test kit. The cycles all progressed well, showing ammonia first, then reduced ammonia while nitrites increased, then finally nitrates while nitrites decreased. It took four to six weeks. The fish were fine, in fact they grew like crazy during the process.

I see lots of people adding this, adding that, doing massive water changes, increasing dosage, losing fish, wondering why their cycles are stuck. When you consider that any partial water change will produce a certain amount of stress on fish, and any chemical you add will produce a certain amount of stress, doing progressively higher percentage water changes and adding progressively higher doses and new chemicals, it doesn't surprise me there are problems.

 

I used Stability and it did rapidly work very well, however I agree even more so with PeeJay, as “used” media IS more natural, and works much much better.

 

Almost a week without doing water changes and just using prime.
Our ammonia is a little high I think because our tap has ammonia. Not really sure what’s going on with that.

 

I agree with PeeJay about media from a friend or LFS. I actually suggested the same thing on April 5th. It’s the best way to cycle.

 

I think we are pretty much cycled. Just going to test a few more days to be sure.

 

She says she is overstocked (by accident or not). This should be addressed. An overstocked tank may never cycle, and that will hurt the fish, no matter how much Prime you dump into the tank.

I think we are pretty much cycled. Just going to test a few more days to be sure.

What is "pretty much cycled"? What are your readings (without putting Prime dosings into the mix)?

 

She says she is overstocked (by accident or not). This should be addressed. An overstocked tank may never cycle, and that will hurt the fish, no matter how much Prime you dump into the tank.



What is "pretty much cycled"? What are your readings (without putting Prime dosings into the mix)?

Get off my posts already.

 

Get off my posts already.

I've got three cycled tanks full of fish that are not dying. If I were you, I'd take that into consideration. You have post(s) plural because your tank STILL isn't cycled. You're overstocked, which is basically inhumane, and you continue to keep those poor fish in 10 gallons of toxic ****.
It's a shame.

Why are you sensitive about being overstocked? That's something you should have brought up. That really IS why your tank won't cycle.

 

I've got three cycled tanks full of fish that are not dying. If I were you, I'd take that into consideration. You have post(s) plural because your tank STILL isn't cycled. You're overstocked, which is basically inhumane, and you continue to keep those poor fish in 10 gallons of toxic .
It's a shame.

Why are you sensitive about being overstocked? That's something you should have brought up. That really IS why your tank won't cycle.

It’s funny how you think you know what are levels are. They are 0, 0, 5-10. For the past few days so yes I think we are cycled. And BTW none of our fish have died besides the 2 angels we had a month and a half ago. Quit acting like you know our tank and what has been going on. You’re assuming stuff that isn’t true. If they were in such toxic water don’t you think they would of died by now? They show NO signs of disease or dieing. Also, everyone knows we have mollies and snails in our tank. It isn’t something I’ve been “hiding” like you think I have been.