Cycling a 25L

Hey guys!

I'm doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia in a 25L tank. I plan to add one male betta and live plants once the tank's cycled and safe.
So far, I've been cycling for 25 days. I didn't get a nitrate test right away, so I've been testing for nitrates ever since day 18 (ammonia since day 1, nitrite since day 7). I added 1 medium sized live plant on day 18, the rest of the tank is empty apart form the hang on the back filter, heater and gravel that I put in on day 1. I added the plant later because I was confused on wether it's good to add plants right away or not because they'll die; at this point I put it in there, and if it dies, it dies. I don't really mind but it does seem to be getting larger actually, with the exception of a few leaves melting off if that indicates anything. I've been keeping my tank at 26 C.

As of now, my nitrites and nitrates have been off the charts since day 18, meaning 5+ mg/L for nitrites and 100+ mg/L for nitrates. I read that high nitrites can stall a cycle, so I've resorted to doing 80-95% water changes every day. My ammonia has converted from 2.0 mg/L to 0 within 24 hours on day 20, but because of the high nitrates and nitrites I'm now only dosing it to 1 or even 0.5 mg/L every 24 hours (and it's still dropping to 0 within 24 hours as of now).

I'm a bit lost on what to do next - should I keep up the water changes? Is my cycle stalled? It feels like something's going wrong because I have such high nitrates even though the nitrites aren't dropping. Should I leave it, even with the high nitrites and nitrates?

Thanks in advance!

 

I would stop doing daily water changes. As long as your ammonia is going down your cycle is moving forward. Have you run all the tests on your source water? If the water changes aren't lowering the nitrates it is possible they are in your source water.

It takes longer for the nitrites to zero out than it does for the ammonia. I would continue adding 1ppm ammonia daily until the nitrites drop.

 

High ammonia is not necessarily bad for plants unless it is very high. Plants prefer ammonia as a food source as it is easier to break down than nitrates.

It looks like you have a good colony of the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites. Since your nitrates are high, you must have bacteria that are converting nitrites to nitrates UNLESS your water used for water changes contains nitrites or nitrates. Have you tested your water supply for pH, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.

Check with your water supplier to see what they are using to disinfect the water. If they use chloramine as the disinfecting agent, every time you are doing a large water change, you are introducing ammonia into the tank. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine plus ammonia. If that is the case, you may be adding a lot more ammonia to your tank than you think. Your water supplier may be adding up to 4 ppm chloramine to your water. If that is the case, large water changes using that water may be detrimental.

My water is high in pH, high in hardness, high in alkalinity, high in phosphates and also contains chloramine. Thus, I use water purified by reverse osmosis and then add back the minerals needed in my aquarium.

 

I would stop doing daily water changes. As long as your ammonia is going down your cycle is moving forward. Have you run all the tests on your source water? If the water changes aren't lowering the nitrates it is possible they are in your source water.

It takes longer for the nitrites to zero out than it does for the ammonia. I would continue adding 1ppm ammonia daily until the nitrites drop.

Hey, thanks for the tip!
My source water isn’t the problem. The water changes do lower the values, it’s just that most of the times the values are so high that a very large water change is needed to get the values readable on the tests again. Won’t the high nitrites stall my cycle though? I’m fine with leaving it but I don’t want to risk killing off all of my progress.

 

High ammonia is not necessarily bad for plants unless it is very high. Plants prefer ammonia as a food source as it is easier to break down than nitrates.

It looks like you have a good colony of the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites. Since your nitrates are high, you must have bacteria that are converting nitrites to nitrates UNLESS your water used for water changes contains nitrites or nitrates. Have you tested your water supply for pH, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.

Check with your water supplier to see what they are using to disinfect the water. If they use chloramine as the disinfecting agent, every time you are doing a large water change, you are introducing ammonia into the tank. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine plus ammonia. If that is the case, you may be adding a lot more ammonia to your tank than you think. Your water supplier may be adding up to 4 ppm chloramine to your water. If that is the case, large water changes using that water may be detrimental.

My water is high in pH, high in hardness, high in alkalinity, high in phosphates and also contains chloramine. Thus, I use water purified by reverse osmosis and then add back the minerals needed in my aquarium.

Hey!
I’m in europe, so we don’t have such high chlorine in the water here. As far as I’m aware, no ammonia either. The water is very hard though. From what I’ve gathered, the tap water doesn’t contain ammonia or nitrites or nitrates. I could retest the nitrates later though, I only tested that one once so it could’ve been wrong now that I think about it. The pH in my tank also seems to be around 6.8 or 7, so I don’t think that that’s affecting the cycle either? I’m very confused on what’s going on in the tank right now. How long does it usually take for nitrites to drop after a spike?

 

Hey, thanks for the tip!
My source water isn’t the problem. The water changes do lower the values, it’s just that most of the times the values are so high that a very large water change is needed to get the values readable on the tests again. Won’t the high nitrites stall my cycle though? I’m fine with leaving it but I don’t want to risk killing off all of my progress.

The nitrites aren't going to kill off your progress. Like I said, as long as your ammonia is still being processed your cycle is moving forward. If the ammonia you add stops going down a water change should get it going again. That will be a sign of a stalled cycle. It will just be stalled though. All the bacteria you have grown will still be there but things will be too far out of balance. Most of the time a simple water change will get things moving forward again.

It can take up to a couple of weeks to grow enough bacteria to process all of the nitrites. You do need to continue feeding the ammonia eating bacteria. Since this is just a 5 gallon tank that will eventually house a Betta 1ppm ammonia will grow enough bacteria to handle his bio-load. When it comes to nitrites we begin to think we will never get through the spike and then one day we test and they will all be gone. For some folks they go down gradually and for some they can be off the chart one day and the next day they will be zero.

 

The nitrites aren't going to kill off your progress. Like I said, as long as your ammonia is still being processed your cycle is moving forward. If the ammonia you add stops going down a water change should get it going again. That will be a sign of a stalled cycle. It will just be stalled though. All the bacteria you have grown will still be there but things will be too far out of balance. Most of the time a simple water change will get things moving forward again.

It can take up to a couple of weeks to grow enough bacteria to process all of the nitrites. You do need to continue feeding the ammonia eating bacteria. Since this is just a 5 gallon tank that will eventually house a Betta 1ppm ammonia will grow enough bacteria to handle his bio-load. When it comes to nitrites we begin to think we will never get through the spike and then one day we test and they will all be gone. For some folks they go down gradually and for some they can be off the chart one day and the next day they will be zero.

Alright, I’ll keep doing that then! 1 ppm ammonia and no more water changes for now.

Sorry to keep bothering you, but what about the nitrates? I shouldn’t have to worry about those either? Even when they’re 100+ mg/L?

 

Alright, I’ll keep doing that then! 1 ppm ammonia and no more water changes for now.

Sorry to keep bothering you, but what about the nitrates? I shouldn’t have to worry about those either? Even when they’re 100+ mg/L?

How long does it take for the nitrates to get that high? It is kinda strange for them to go that high unless you were adding much more ammonia than necessary. It seems a lot of folks in your part of the world do report having nitrates in their tap water. I know you said yours is fine but I have to ask if you have run the nitrate test on it recently?

Are you adding any kind of fertilizer for your plant? If so maybe that is where some of the nitrates are coming from. Either way, as long as the 1ppm ammonia you add daily goes down to zero within 24 hours your cycle is moving forward so there is no need to change any water to lower either nitrites or nitrates.

Also, keep an eye on your pH. should it start dropping you may have to do a water change. The cycling process can sometimes cause it to drop. You don't want to let it drop below 7.

 

How long does it take for the nitrates to get that high? It is kinda strange for them to go that high unless you were adding much more ammonia than necessary. It seems a lot of folks in your part of the world do report having nitrates in their tap water. I know you said yours is fine but I have to ask if you have run the nitrate test on it recently?

Are you adding any kind of fertilizer for your plant? If so maybe that is where some of the nitrates are coming from. Either way, as long as the 1ppm ammonia you add daily goes down to zero within 24 hours your cycle is moving forward so there is no need to change any water to lower either nitrites or nitrates.

Also, keep an eye on your pH. should it start dropping you may have to do a water change. The cycling process can sometimes cause it to drop. You don't want to let it drop below 7.

The nitrates rise in about 24 hours. I can't get them down to 0, so I'm not 100% sure how much they rise in said 24 hours. It's pretty much just after the ammonia is converted, the nitrites and nitrates get super high.

For ammonia, I use a solution that's < 5%, so I've been adding ammonia until my dropping test showed me the mg/L I was aiming for. I figured out that 20 drops equals 0.5 mg/L, and that number hasn't changed throughout the cycling proces (as in, using 20 drops for 0.5 mg/L has always given me the same results for the mg/L of ammonia in my tank water). I test at least 1 hour after adding new ammonia to the tank. Up until day 19 I stuck with 2 mg/L ammonia, but ever since my nitrites and nitrates got so high I was kind of confused and have to admit I made a bit of a mess of the ammonia dosing.
On day 20, they showed up as 0 mg/L so I added ammonia to get the amount back up to 1 mg/L. On day 21, ammonia was 0 mg/L again so I dosed it back up to 1 mg/L (again). On day 22, ammonia was 0 mg/L again and I dosed it back up to 0.25 mg/L. On day 23, I wasn't able to run tests and on day 24 I added 10 drops, so less than 0.5 mg/L after my test showed 0 mg/L that day.
I'm now back to the 1 mg/L ammonia dosing (day 25) and will keep that up. I hope that that means that I'm not adding too much ammonia.

For nitrates, I just ran another test on 100% tap water to check. The dropping test doesn't show any detectable nitrates, so there's < 5 mg/L in my tap water. I added fertilizer once, back on day 18 or something after adding the plant, before I realized that that wasn't necessary and could mess up my test results. I quit using it after that one time and have done a lot of waterchanges since.

I have some testing strips for pH, so I'll admit not the most precise, but I'll try to use them more frequently (instead of once or twice a week) to monitor my pH as much as I can right now.

I'm really confused where the nitrates are coming from too, but I really appreciate you trying to help me! Thank you! For now, I'll stick with the advice you gave me If you need to know anything else, just let me know and if it all goes wrong, I'll post a new question soon enough haha.

 

I just realized you are in the Netherlands. When you said Europe I just assumed you were in an area prone to nitrates in your water. We have several folks here from your part of the world and from what I have read y'all have great water.

How is your plant doing? Sometimes they melt before they settle in and start growing well. As they melt they can produce ammonia. That could be causing some of the nitrates.

Are you using the API test kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? I noticed you said you have strips to test the pH level so I have to assume you didn't buy an API Master Test Kit because if you did you would have a liquid test for both high and low pH. The only reason I bring this up is because I am familiar with how these tests work. I am not sure what I am about to recommend you do can be done with what you are testing with.

If you do have the API test you can do a dilution test to determine just how high your nitrites actually are if they are pegging out the chart. You may be able to do it even if you are using something other than the API test kits. To do a dilution test put half tank water and half source water in the test tube and run the test on that mixture. If the color still looks to be off the chart, experiment with the amount of tank water to source water until you get a readable number. This will at least let you know just how high your nitrite truly are. The higher they are the longer it will take for them to come down.

It is possible that your nitrites are really high. As they are gradually going down they are producing the majority of the nitrates you are seeing. Again, seeing both nitrites and nitrates this high shouldn't be a problem as long as the ammonia you add is still going down each day.

Those nitrite eating bacteria can be sneaky little critters. They can hang around for what seems like forever and then, boom, just like magic the nitrite will be gone. It seems like it happens over night. It really doesn't. The bacteria that eats it is just slowly building up until finally there is enough of it to take care of every bit of the nitrite the ammonia eating bacteria is producing. The nitrites are still being produced and will continue to be produced as long as there is an ammonia source but there will be enough bacteria to keep the reading at zero.

Once there is enough of both ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria to keep both at zero the cycle will be done and the tank will be ready for fish. The fish will be adding the ammonia and the cycle continues for the life of the tank. Hopefully by the time that happens the nitrate will stop going sky high.

 

I just realized you are in the Netherlands. When you said Europe I just assumed you were in an area prone to nitrates in your water. We have several folks here from your part of the world and from what I have read y'all have great water.

How is your plant doing? Sometimes they melt before they settle in and start growing well. As they melt they can produce ammonia. That could be causing some of the nitrates.

Are you using the API test kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? I noticed you said you have strips to test the pH level so I have to assume you didn't buy an API Master Test Kit because if you did you would have a liquid test for both high and low pH. The only reason I bring this up is because I am familiar with how these tests work. I am not sure what I am about to recommend you do can be done with what you are testing with.

If you do have the API test you can do a dilution test to determine just how high your nitrites actually are if they are pegging out the chart. You may be able to do it even if you are using something other than the API test kits. To do a dilution test put half tank water and half source water in the test tube and run the test on that mixture. If the color still looks to be off the chart, experiment with the amount of tank water to source water until you get a readable number. This will at least let you know just how high your nitrite truly are. The higher they are the longer it will take for them to come down.

It is possible that your nitrites are really high. As they are gradually going down they are producing the majority of the nitrates you are seeing. Again, seeing both nitrites and nitrates this high shouldn't be a problem as long as the ammonia you add is still going down each day.

Those nitrite eating bacteria can be sneaky little critters. They can hang around for what seems like forever and then, boom, just like magic the nitrite will be gone. It seems like it happens over night. It really doesn't. The bacteria that eats it is just slowly building up until finally there is enough of it to take care of every bit of the nitrite the ammonia eating bacteria is producing. The nitrites are still being produced and will continue to be produced as long as there is an ammonia source but there will be enough bacteria to keep the reading at zero.

Once there is enough of both ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria to keep both at zero the cycle will be done and the tank will be ready for fish. The fish will be adding the ammonia and the cycle continues for the life of the tank. Hopefully by the time that happens the nitrate will stop going sky high.

I don't have an API test kit, but I do have dropping tests for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates from a brand called Colombia (can't find API in stores here, but I can find Colombia. Seems to be one of the go to brands here that's similar to API). They also have a kit, and I'll be getting that one as soon as one of the dropping tests I currently have runs out. I didn't realize they made complete kits too (including a dropping test for pH and KH as well as the dropping tests I currently have) at first, but I do now and also figured that buying one of those is loads cheaper, so I'll do that from now on.

I ran a diluted test as you suggested; I took one part tank water and mixed it with 3 parts tap water (so a 4x diluted test if I'm correct). My nitrates showed up as 2 mg/L, so they're probably at about 8 in the tank if I'm correct. The nitrates showed as 10 mg/L, I'm not entirely sure but I think it's 20 at most, so they're probably around 40? They could have lowered due to the previous days of adding less ammonia and doing the large water changes. I'll keep an eye out to see what they'll do now that I'm dosing 1 mg/L of ammonia again.

The plant I have in there is melting a bit. I added a photo for reference. I didn't even think about the plant producing ammonia, but I can take it out if it would be too much of a problem.

 

The dilution test is telling us things are moving forward just as they should be and if doesn't look like they are as high as I thought they might be.

I would leave the plant in there. It actually looks pretty healthy to me. Even if it is producing some ammonia it doesn't look like it is melting enough to be a problem. As long as it is going to zero within 24 hours just continue to feed the cycle 1ppm ammonia daily.