During cycle, nitrates have risen to 30ppm but nitrites are stalled at 1ppm

[Peter K]

Hi all,

I just finished up week 6 of our cycle but am still detecting nitrites at around 1ppm (using salifert test kit. I have no ammonia, or very little, according to salifert ammonia test kit) but my nitrates have risen from 5ppm on August 5th to around 30-35ppm now. Nitrites have remained at around .5-1ppm since August 14th. I dosed Biodigest and microbacter7 for bacteria supplements and was dosing the microbacter 7 every day for the first two weeks and every other day afterwards at the lower concentration. For the food source I dosed both Dr. Tims ammonia and fastart-m. Around week 4 I stopped dosing fastart-m every day and was only using it every few days. Should I continue to dose ammonia / fastart-m or should I perform a water change and just let it sit for a bit longer?

Thank you all in advance.

 

[Auto-pilot]

Are you sure your test kit is testing correctly?? If you test clean water does it show 0

 

[Peter K]

I just tested some salt water I've had mixing and it came out to 0 there.

Fresh salt water:

Tank water:

 

[Auto-pilot]

That Hmm how did you cycle your water???

 

[Peter K]

Dosed microbacter7 every day for first two weeks per instructions and then every other day from that two weeks onward (minus the two weeks I was out of town during weeks 3/4 of cycle). Dosed fastart-m every day for first two weeks as well (Stopped dosing this every day after two weeks). I also added Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride per directions every day 1/3/6. I'm beginning to wonder if I actually waited too long and the bacteria lost the food source and I'm re-cycling again.

 

[Auto-pilot]

Ok nm I re read your post. So you have not had any source of amonia for a while. How much live rock do you have is it bare bottom?

 

[Peter K]

Live sand and dry rock. I have been adding fastart-m the past week or so again. I've been reading 1ppm nitrite for over a week now testing every other day. I'm wondering if I should add our clownfish pair to the tank now but I know 1ppm nitrite is rough on fish. I have still been adding microbacter7 every other day.

 

[Auto-pilot]

Here is another solution to your problem. Get some feeder mollies and acclimate to salt water using a bucket and a airstone. Then put them into the tank. Mollies are super hearty and you can use them to help get the biological cycle started and see if the water is ok for life.

 

[Auto-pilot]

1ppm is high. I would wait with the clowns for a bit

 

[brandon429]

Your cycle is done, source: microbiology of cycling thread. Your issue is testing wastewater vs clean water redo test, which it will pass immediately. We just did this same test last page of the thread.

I bet you have a false nitrite reading due to many confounds that make the test nearly useless

Nitrite readings are not required in reefing anyway, can kick out the reading altogether.


30 days submerged after adding boosters and not adding doses of maintained antibiotic meds: anywhere on earth except a positive pressure microbiology lab you are cycled. All google cycling charts agree at day ~25 nitrite is zero and is linked to ammonia zero based on submersion time. Cheap testers might disagree, en masse

Seneye users get to accurately test wastewater for ammonia since their gear is not useless for accurate low level detection.

If you want to make your testers work, don't test wastewater. Test clean water, last page:

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

All reef tanks cycle by roughly the same date when boosters are used, on or before day 30
Few would agree to that statement. Good thing we cycle tanks left and right with it there above.

 

[jt17]

The bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrite will populate faster than the bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate. Thats why it takes a little longer to build up enough bacteria to reduce nitrites to zero.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Same thing happened to me during my cycle. My nitrites were stuck for a good amount of time. Also cycled with MB7 and dry rock

After reaching out to the community I was assured that nitrites are not harmful to marine inhabitants but I felt better getting the water params in check before adding livestock

I did a large wc and added a bottle of bio spira. nitrites dropped to 0 soon after.

 

[Harold999]

Your cycle is done, source: microbiology of cycling thread. Your issue is testing wastewater vs clean water.

Not being an American, what do you exactly mean with waste- vs clean water testing?
I know what waste and clean normally means, but i don't get it in your context.

 

[brandon429]

all forms and arrangements of cycles in a display reef tank are done by week 6

at week six rocks and sand will carry any typical basic reef starting bioload.

per any cycling chart, ammonia is the only line from the three that can harm things in a marine cycle.

in freshwater, nitrite matters. but not here, not at all. not in any reef tanks display cycle nitrite doesn't factor in updated cycling science rules.

wastewater is the original water for the tank, having been dosed with all kinds of things per cycler. it ranges tank to tank.


if we search out any ammonia kit online we can see thousands of reports about misreads. that means for every 100 ammonia tests online, we can see based on our own searches how many are assumed to be correct vs incorrect.

having wastewater full of 2 ppm jets of ammonia, now converted, messes up these color tests to the point they'll report nearly anything we can see it in online search patterns.


changing the waste water means we remove all cycling metabolites that may be influencing test reads. we know at a minimum that water is safe. it means for tanks accessible, do a large water change and begin on week six of any arrangement you've assembled and it will be cycled. the thread above is a six year running test of the claims.