Hello all! I am quite new to the saltwater hobby, as I’ve had freshwater for years, but recently just graduated college and on my own, I finally got to start a hobby ive been wanting to do for a long time! Currently I have a Fluval Flex, 32.5, and over the last month the cycling process has been a bit of a mystery to me. I started cycling the tank using the flake food method, and using Microbacter 7, but I did not have any luck doing this for about 3 weeks, noticed ammonia increase to .5ppm, but nothing else. I did add live sand to the tank originally, with about 30lb of dry rock, and to help speed up coraline algae growth I added one small piece of live rock I purchased from my LPS, well after being frustrated over nothing happening, I added 2 very small sponge filters from my established freshwater tank, hoping that it would help seed the tank, but after a few days , I tried using Microbacter XLM start, which worked pretty well, I am actually on day 4 of the cycle with it ( apparently supposed to cycle in 7 days) but I am getting strange results. My ammonia has converted into nitrites, and my nitrites into nitrates, but neither my ammonia level, or my nitrite level seems to have dropped. Currently my levels are
Ammonia: 1.00ppm
Nitrite: 1.00-2.00pm
Nitrate: 20ppm
I assume that the cycle is happening, but that the bacteria has not built up enough to completely handle and convert all of the ammonia and nitrite, but I am not sure if it is some error on my part, I just thought it was odd , as from what I’ve read the ammonia should drop to 0 after nitrite conversion, and same with nitrites to nitrates, which is really confusing as to why I have all 3. Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated!
Ammonia: 1.00ppm
Nitrite: 1.00-2.00pm
Nitrate: 20ppm
I assume that the cycle is happening, but that the bacteria has not built up enough to completely handle and convert all of the ammonia and nitrite, but I am not sure if it is some error on my part, I just thought it was odd , as from what I’ve read the ammonia should drop to 0 after nitrite conversion, and same with nitrites to nitrates, which is really confusing as to why I have all 3. Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated!