Done cycling but no signs of nitrates ?

Angel_V_the_reefer · Jan 11, 2021

Okay so I have finished cycling. My ammonia is at 0, nitrites at 0, and nitrates 0. I’ve been cycling for about two weeks using bio spira and dr Tim’s ammonium chloride . I dosed at recommended 2ppm and was reading about every 2 days. The first week my ammonia’s began to go down and nitrites began to rise. After my nitrites began to lower my nitrates began to rise. Eventually I noticed my nitrates began to disappear these 2 days and now today I am read 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. I’m confused as to what happened. I have been keeping my lights off for the most part (except maybe 20 minutes a day mfor the view). What could it be ?

brandon429 · Jan 11, 2021

As long as your ammonia dropped you are still cycled. Reasons you are reading zero: for starters, no two nitrate kits show the same reading post to post on comparison threads, you may be at forty on another kit same sample. Ammonia moving down is all you need to see, reducing three misreading params down to just one param we look for motion down, but not total zero, are the new cycling rules panning out just fine here

perhaps you have low nitrates and high sample dilution. Won’t matter, because only ammonia going down matters your cycle is specifically not stuck because nitrite or nitrate read something. It’s about ammonia and meeting the timeframe on the bottle

if the bottle bac were dead or challenged the original ammonia dose wouldn’t go down by directions date.

Jgg12002 · Jan 11, 2021

Sounds like a normal cycle to me. Nitrites consume ammonia and nitrates consume nitrites. Your nitrates will read 0 if there are low nutrients in the water After a cycle.
Do you have any inhabitants? More feeding should raise nitrates. Or you could dose them.

Angel_V_the_reefer · Jan 11, 2021

Jgg12002 said:
Sounds like a normal cycle to me. Nitrites consume ammonia and nitrates consume nitrites. Your nitrates will read 0 if there are low nutrients in the water After a cycle.
Do you have any inhabitants? More feeding should raise nitrates. Or you could dose them.

No as of right now I don’t. I’m planning on changing out 25% of water today and adding a pinch of fish food to keep the bacteria fed every week. Not sure when I’m getting fish as I need to set up my qt. Do you guys qt fish ?

Angel_V_the_reefer · Jan 11, 2021

brandon429 said:
As long as your ammonia dropped you are still cycled. Reasons you are reading zero: for starters, no two nitrate kits show the same reading post to post on comparison threads, you may be at forty on another kit same sample. Ammonia moving down is all you need to see, reducing three misreading params down to just one param we look for motion down, but not total zero, are the new cycling rules panning out just fine here

perhaps you have low nitrates and high sample dilution. Won’t matter, because only ammonia going down matters your cycle is specifically not stuck because nitrite or nitrate read something. It’s about ammonia and meeting the timeframe on the bottle

if the bottle bac were dead or challenged the original ammonia dose wouldn’t go down by directions date.

Okay just making sure haha I wasn’t sure if something weird happened. Thank you !

brandon429 · Jan 11, 2021

I sure would, the disease forum shows consequence of skipping fallow and qt

Angel_V_the_reefer · Jan 11, 2021

brandon429 said:
I sure would, the disease forum shows consequence of skipping fallow and qt

Yeah that’s the big picture ! I’m setting mine up soon. Do LFS quarantine any fish for you if you ask ?

brandon429 · Jan 11, 2021

Some websites will ship em to you quarantined not sure if it’s trustworthy at lfs unless they have a dedicated room for it, many cross contamination sources there vs a common home

Brooke24 · Jan 22, 2021

brandon429 said:
Some websites will ship em to you quarantined not sure if it’s trustworthy at lfs unless they have a dedicated room for it, many cross contamination sources there vs a common home

what websites ship already quarantined?