Fishless cycle help

Jason7181 · Apr 13, 2014

I started fishless cycling my tank on April 4 with 20 lbs of live sand and 14 lbs of dry rock and 5 lbs of LR. I added ammonia to get to 4ppm and added ammonia when I tested and it was at 0. Now my nitrites are off the chart and so are my nitrates. I did a 90% water change today and still both nitrites and nitrates are off the chart.

Do you think the cycle is stalled?

Should I do another wc to try and get the nitrite down?

Should I let it be and see what happens?

Temp 83
Sal 1.025
Ammonia 0
PH 8.4
Nitrite 5ppm+
Nitrate 160+

Reefing Madness · Apr 13, 2014

No more water changes. The Nitrates will grow enough bacteria to eat out the Nitrites. Then your water change comes.

Jason7181 · Apr 13, 2014

I haven't dosed ammonia in since Friday should I dose ammonia tomorrow?

Reefing Madness · Apr 13, 2014

Couldn't hurt. The more bacteria built up, the more inhabitants you can put it at one time when the cycle is over.

Jason7181 · Apr 13, 2014

thanks

7hogwarts · Apr 14, 2014

Why not does In some other bacteria for diversity? Microbacter7, Dr. Tim's, Or Prodibio just to name a few.
Also, are you sure your test kits are good or accurate?

Jason7181 · Apr 14, 2014

Yes the kits are accurate. That's what I thought until I brought a sample in to a LFS and it tested the same.

NanaReefer · Apr 14, 2014

Definitely stop WC's.

tyler1503 · Apr 14, 2014

Agreed, stop the water changes.
Wait till you have 0 ammonia and nitrites for a few days then start water changes to bring the nitrates down. When there down to at most 20, you can add a CUC.

icsparks · Apr 15, 2014

No worries. It sounds like you was on the down side of the cycle. Once the nitrites reach 0 you can do a large water change to knock down the nitrates. Ammonia= Nitrites= Nitrates. Adding the ammonia caused the other two levels to rise as the ammonia got consumed quickly which is a good thing. The only time you will see an ammonia spike is when there isnt enough bacteria to support the load. If you added ammonia to the tank and still got 0 then the bacteria are there. I think it's nuts to build up a heavy bacteria load just to have it starve off after the cycle. I have yet to see a way to measure the amount of bio load (bacteria) in a tank and say you can add X amount of critters at one time and be safe. The level of bacteria will go up or down depending on the amount of food and living space in the tank. Thats why bacteria blooms happen when we either feed to much, add critters or something dies in the tank. The bacteria play catchup.

petemichelle · Apr 23, 2014

I added a raw shrimp cut up and in a mesh bag that is tied to my return line. when it decays, it produces the ammonia, I test every week (I am on the 4th week) and while it is still cycling, I keep a piece of cut up raw shrimp in the bag. This is so the ammonia load stays relatively the same until it finishes cycling. otherwise while you are waiting for the bacteria to grow and consume the nitrites, if all the ammonia producing raw shrimp is gone, then the bacteria which consumes the ammonia and turns it into nitrites will starve out and you will have to start all over again. when the cycle is completed, 0 reading of ammonia, 0 reading of nitrites, then simply remove the mesh bag of raw shrimp and add your fish and clean up crew. the bacteria colony will grow or shrink to accommodate the existing load.