Cycle question, ammonia and nitrate but no nitrites?

[yanni]

Hey everyone!

I set up my waterbox 20 a few days ago, and added dr tims ammonia and one n only to start the cycle. I dosed ammonia to 4ppm, and have been testing daily. I'll attach a screenshot of my excel spreadsheet with test results. I've been recording ammonia and nitrates from day 2, but very minimal nitrate. nitrite showed up, but has yet to show up again. upon today's testing, it showed up as 0.05ppm, but it was extremely hard to read the colour, (using Red Sea test kits).

My filtration consists of a filter sock, that I've removed as I've added bacteria for 48hrs, two sponges, one bag of activated carbon, and one bag of black media balls that came with the tank.

Is it weird I'm not reading any, to extremely low nitrite. I know it's early on in the cycle, but I want to make sure I triple check everything.

 

[Adrift]

Who’s nitrifying bacteria did you use?

 

[yanni]

Who’s nitrifying bacteria did you use?

I used Dr tims one n only

 

[brandon429]

make this a simple cycle using your arrangement do exactly this and youll be ready to reef by January 16th:

add in two pinches of finely ground up fish food into the display. make sure you have all your rocks in the display taking on the bacteria. Wait till January 16th, you're cycled, and can't not be cycled using the particular arrangement and that bacteria. Not any testing from non digital test kits for any param will alter this outcome, you will be done on a predetermined date we have a 29 page thread doing exactly this (testless cycling) and its much much better than test based cycling, because you can now spend the next ten days studying fish disease preps in the disease forum vs concerning over nitrite.

specifically, on J 16th, your cycle is done and not any test you run on cheap kits now or then matters. It will be ready and can't not be ready. if you choose to buy a $180 seneye and run a test on J 16th it'll pass, but thats not needed because above it was typed twice you can't not be ready on the 16th using the above arrangement

cycle=solved and start date set.

heres the proof thread

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[yanni]

make this a simple cycle using your arrangement do exactly this and youll be ready to reef by January 16th:

add in two pinches of finely ground up fish food into the display. make sure you have all your rocks in the display taking on the bacteria. Wait till January 16th, you're cycled, and can't not be cycled using the particular arrangement and that bacteria. Not any testing from non digital test kits for any param will alter this outcome, you will be done on a predetermined date we have a 29 page thread doing exactly this (testless cycling) and its much much better than test based cycling, because you can now spend the next ten days studying fish disease preps in the disease forum vs concerning over nitrite.

specifically, on J 16th, your cycle is done and not any test you run on cheap kits now or then matters. It will be ready and can't not be ready. if you choose to buy a $180 seneye and run a test on J 16th it'll pass, but thats not needed because above it was typed twice you can't not be ready on the 16th using the above arrangement

cycle=solved and start date set.

heres the proof thread

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

non digital ammonia test kit readings (api, Red Sea, nyos, seachem badges) make you think you aren’t cycled when indeed you are if you owned a $200 expensive seneye meter, you’d never be doubting your cycle status. since .01% of the reefing population owns these, we need a way to help the...

www.reef2reef.com

oooh wow. should i just RODI top off while i wait?

 

[brandon429]

yes

 

[brandon429]

we use Randy's cycling rules for ammonia only monitoring in that thread above its solid advice, to stop factoring nitrate and nitrite. Where we went beyond details just a little was that testing isn't required even for ammonia in our thread, because some testers aren't able to indicate the drop timing we know exists so we sub in # of days wait and those food boosts to just forego testing altogether.


anyone on seneye digital is going to see the ammonia control he states as the marker. a large portion of api and red sea owners may not see that drop (which is most examples in our 29 pages) so we just sub in a full water change on day 10 ish if they've dosed bottle bac and some form of feed, and that works just fine to cause a ready date.

its still all about ammonia control only, the difference is we don't think that drop date varies tank to tank-only ability to wield a test kit to see that drop varies tank to tank, not the actual timing biology. no cycle charts range on core params, book to book and site to site all cycle charts are 30 days, ammonia by ten, nitrite by 25 ish, and nitrate going up even if a cheap tester doesn't agree. the charts don't vary because the biology really doesn't vary, that's the timing we use over and over and over there.

fish disease is what will kill the fish if skipped, not any aspect of a bad cycle.