Cycling Oddity?

Laura0311

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Hi there,

My name is Laura and I am new to aquariums. I have been trying to cycle a tank and am confused at what is going on right now. My nitrites and nitrates are showing at 0 ppm, but my ammonia is at 1 ppm. From what I understand, the ammonia should have dropped first before the other two. I have been trying to cycle it for about a month now. I have done no water changes, just small top ups along with treating that water with Top Fin Water Conditioner. I found Seachem Stability in the store when I got this tank and I used it as directed for 4 days until a friend told me it would probably be useless so I stopped. Is it possible that using this messed things up somehow? I have sponge and cnodes in the filter. Does anyone have any ideas on what is happening or what I should do?
 

Coralreefer1

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Hi Laura, welcome to R2R first off.
As for you tank, what are you using to cycle your tank? You still seem to be in the introductory stages of the nitrogen cycle. Eventually your nitrites will escalate and your ammonia will subside. Then your nitrites will subside and your nitrates will become elevated. Then your nitrates should become almost nothing. Do you have live sand and live rock in your tank?
 
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Laura0311

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I just put a little bit of flake food in to start. My levels of nitrites and nitrates already elevated and came back down, but the ammonia is still at 1 ppm. No live sand or rocks
 

40B Knasty

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This whole cycle of hers has blown my mind. Ammonia was at 5ppm. Nitrites were at 4-5ppm. Nitrates were at 10ppm. Dosed Stability and after a week or 2 the readings are 1ppm 0ppm 0ppm and no water change. She is using an Aqua Clear 20 a with sponge Cnodes and Purigen in the canister.
Now she is looking for people with experience that have used the Stability in the middle of a cycle and experienced the same issue with ammonia being stuck at 1ppm.
I don't get how nitrates are gone since they were not removed from a water change.
Source water tests:
With an API kit = 1ppm ammonia
With an Ammonia test strip = 0ppm
Tank water:
With API kit = 4ppm
With test strip = 1ppm
 

Ly78

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Well you can try using different test kits or ask your lfs to help test your water just for confirmation of parameters
 

Coralreefer1

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I just put a little bit of flake food in to start. My levels of nitrites and nitrates already elevated and came back down, but the ammonia is still at 1 ppm. No live sand or rocks
Laura, you need to go to the grocery store and get some frozen shrimp. Drop a shrimp in your tank and forget about it. This is the best bet to cycle your tank. Other than this, use uncured rock, uncured sand or Damsel Fish. Using flake food to cycle your tank just won’t work.
 

Ly78

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You dont have rocks,sand or any other substrate(matrix or marinepure etc..) at all? The bacteria might not have enough surface area to grow.
I just put a little bit of flake food in to start. My levels of nitrites and nitrates already elevated and came back down, but the ammonia is still at 1 ppm. No live sand or rocks
 

lakai

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Why are you using water conditioner. Are you using tap water to top off? If you are, don't.

I don't get how nitrates are gone since they were not removed from a water change.
They're still there, its just in the purigen.

Take the purigen out, get a bottle of biospira and dump half or the whole bottle in your HOB filter or where your biomedia/substrate is. Dose ammonia to 2ppm and let sit for 24 hours. The bacteria takes I believe 13 hours to double itself and your ammonia should be at or near 0 ppm after 24 hours. Dose ammonia to 4ppm and dump the rest of the bottle in your filter and tank. Let the cycle do its thing for another 24 hours and test ammonia. It will likely read 0, dose another 4 ppm and it will likely read zero in little more than half a day. At the end of the week test nitrite/nitrate and you should be good to go.

Stability is not very concentrated and its dormant bacteria takes a long time to become active. I've poured literally half a gallon of it to start a tank and it had nearly no effect. I lost patience and dumped biospira and things actually showed progress in less than a day.
 

40B Knasty

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Why are you using water conditioner. Are you using tap water to top off? If you are, don't.


They're still there, its just in the purigen.

Take the purigen out, get a bottle of biospira and dump half or the whole bottle in your HOB filter or where your biomedia/substrate is. Dose ammonia to 2ppm and let sit for 24 hours. The bacteria takes I believe 13 hours to double itself and your ammonia should be at or near 0 ppm after 24 hours. Dose ammonia to 4ppm and dump the rest of the bottle in your filter and tank. Let the cycle do its thing for another 24 hours and test ammonia. It will likely read 0, dose another 4 ppm and it will likely read zero in little more than half a day. At the end of the week test nitrite/nitrate and you should be good to go.

Stability is not very concentrated and its dormant bacteria takes a long time to become active. I've poured literally half a gallon of it to start a tank and it had nearly no effect. I lost patience and dumped biospira and things actually showed progress in less than a day.
Actually the bag of Purigen hasn't been put in. So where the nitrates went Idk..
 

fermentedhiker

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Not sure what strains of bacteria are in stability. Many of the bottle bacteria seem to contain waste degrading bacteria instead of nitrification bacteria. If that's the case it could explain the drop of nitrates as digester bacteria can process nitrate and phosphate to a point but don't do much for the actual cycle of the tank. Adding a bottle of biospira, Dr Tim's one and only, or.fritz should jumpstart things for.you.
 
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Laura0311

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Thanks fermentedhiker. I will go ahead and restart the cycling and use Dr. Tim's once I start to see ammonia.
 
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