High Nitrites/Nitrates - cycling in progress

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Hi all,

So this is the 2nd time I've had to cycle my tank due to moving house and the first time I don't believe I had too much dramas with the nitrites being too high or nitrates being as high as they are.

During this cycle my tank has been up approx 25 days so far. I was unable to get my hands on Dr Tims One and Only initially the weekend I was setting it up, however I was able to get some Seachem Stability. I know this seems to get mixed reviews as to it's effectiveness/quickness etc however I followed the 7 day guide on the bottle.
After day 1 or 2 I dosed some ammonium chloride (Dr tims) left over from the first time I set up the tank.
This pumped the ammonia up to about 2ppm or so and within about 5 days it came back down and appears to be now 0.

However, my Nitrites are 5+ and have been for about a 2 weeks and Nitrates went as high as 160-200 or so, came back down to around 40 after about 60-70L water change (Total system volume approx 260L) and then popped back upto about 80.

Should I look to continue doing some larger water changes or should I just wait it out and the nitrites will drop on their own?
I thought perhaps I needed to get some seachem prime to get rid of the nitrites (Nitrates I know will go down with the water changes and maybe some activated carbon).

Currently no livestock in the tank and also haven't dosed any additional ammonium chloride to test how quick it'll remove the ammonia due to the high nitrites (I didn't want to add to the 'problem').

Would appreciate your feedback/guidance.
Cheers
 
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So no ammonia, nitrites are ~5ppm and nitrates are ~80ppm? What test kit are you using?
Just a crappy API one for these ones.
Can prob test nitrates with a salifert if need be, but I think it's more the nitrites I'm concerned with. Don't really want to be buying a salifert to do a single test or few tests for the cycle process only really. Guess I could if I need to though but the API has been fine for testing it in the past.
 

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Just a crappy API one for these ones.
Can prob test nitrates with a salifert if need be, but I think it's more the nitrites I'm concerned with. Don't really want to be buying a salifert to do a single test or few tests for the cycle process only really. Guess I could if I need to though but the API has been fine for testing it in the past.
I'd get a good nitrate test kit (I like Nyos). Going forward you'll need one anyway.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Forget nitrate for now. Nitrite interferes. Sometimes 5 ppm nitrite would read as all of the nitrate you see.

Either measure nitrate after nitrite has disappeared, or be prepared to try to substract out the interference, which I do not know the exact level of with API.
 
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Forget nitrate for now. Nitrite interferes. Sometimes 5 ppm nitrite would read as all of the nitrate you see.

Either measure nitrate after nitrite has disappeared, or be prepared to try to substract out the interference, which I do not know the exact level of with API.
Thanks Randy, definitely not worried about the Nitrates currently. It's just the Nitrites.

With that in mind, should I be doing more water changes or dosing Prime ? or would you have other suggestions ?
I've had no ammonia for the last 10 days but nitrites are sticking around.
 
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There's no toxicity concern at 5 ppm nitrite, even if that's accurate. Just keep cycling. I would not add anything to "detoxify" it.
Ok, thanks for the advice.

My concern with them being up is potentially stressing livestock.
See all my old livestock is on hold for me and they're wanting to send to me ASAP (possibly as soon as end of next week), which will obviously cause quite a sudden increase in bioload that I'll have to try and manage.

I know that this isn't ideal for a 'new' tank but it's what I've got to work with.
 
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Just a quick update;

Tested on the 17th after doing a 30-40% water change on the weekend.

pH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 7.5ish
Phosphate - 0.064
Salinity - 1.025
Alkalinity - 7
Calcium - 405
Magnesium - 1185

Happy with how it's come along.
Phosphate will need to come down a bit more (have some rowaphos and a media reactor to use that I haven't had going just yet)
I dosed a little carbonate, calcium & magnesium with trace elements to get some of the levels where I wanted.
Mag probably needs to go a little higher as will the Alk, but will test again tonight to see where they're at before I do anything further.
 

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Just a quick update;

Tested on the 17th after doing a 30-40% water change on the weekend.

pH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 7.5ish
Phosphate - 0.064
Salinity - 1.025
Alkalinity - 7
Calcium - 405
Magnesium - 1185

Happy with how it's come along.
Phosphate will need to come down a bit more (have some rowaphos and a media reactor to use that I haven't had going just yet)
I dosed a little carbonate, calcium & magnesium with trace elements to get some of the levels where I wanted.
Mag probably needs to go a little higher as will the Alk, but will test again tonight to see where they're at before I do anything further.

Looks good!
 

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