Still Stuck, Stuck, Stuck, Stuck..........

Hi Sue,
Day 33 reading was Ammo 0.50 Nitrite 0.50  Dosed up to 2.00ppm
Day 34   Ammo was hard to read i thought 0.50 - 1ppm (probably more like 1) Nitrite was still 0.50
Day 35  Ammo was 1.00 Nitrite 0.25
Day 37 Today Ammo still 1 and Nitrite 0

What ppm of ammonia should i put in 2.00?  might as well, i always have green test result anyway

RIGHT! put dollop of ammonia in, lost track of ammounts so it's now reading a good 4.00ppm so that should be easy to track and i don't want to put any more in till it's at least 0.25 ppm or 0, if i don't have to? so i will update you tomorrow, and be interested to see if it goes down at all. P S my plants are not thanking you for this lol 

Just a thought, Aquamaid - are you giving the nitrate tester bottle 2 a really good shake? People do get false results if it's not shaken enough.

Trying to think of reasons your nitrite goes down but your nitrate doesn't go up.....

Aquamaid, I thought your day 28 nitrate reading was 40? 4 doesn't sound like a reading you get on the API test kits.

Hi Hun, I know you are getting frustrated, but I think you are getting somewhere! Have you read up on fish less cycling? Do you know why you are adding the ammonia?
It's basically keeping the good bacteria in your filter fed until your cycle is finished, so you don't want it to be zero for an extended period, but you do want to know your bacteria are capable of taking it down to zero. So we want to see a zero, but not to keep it at zero... Does that make sense?
Cos the aim is not just to achieve a zero on ammonia, but also on nitrite.
Anyway it's explained a lot better on the numerous explanations of fish less cycling online.
I've said it before, but it think it would help you see what's happening g if you also do the occasional nitrate test too. As nitrate is the end product of the cycle, so as you see it increasing you know something is happening.

Thank you guys, on Oct 8th Day 31 i took sample of tank water to local Maidenhead Aquatics, the guy there gave me readings of Ammonia = 0.50   Nitrite = 0.50 and Nitrate = 20 - 40. I will re read everything tomorrow including tap water and post results.
I am under the impression i am waiting to see how long it takes the bacteria to get the readings down to 0 then feed em more and see how long that takes to get to 0 again, what i dont understand is why when i get to 1 or 0.50 ppm i have to stick more Ammonia in, that isn't 0 lol so no i don't really understand 

I don't like their reading of zero for nitrate. It is very rare to have zero nitrate in tapwater in the UK - your tapwater reading is the lowest your tank should be unless you have so many plants they are using it all - but in that case your ammonia should be zero as well as plants prefer that as food over nitrate. Plants don't use nitrite though.


The theory of fishless cycling is:
You add ammonia and wait for enough ammonia eaters to grow to use the ammonia and turn it into nitrite. Once they start growing, the ammonia level drops and the nitrite reading goes up. Then you have to wait for the nitrite eaters to grow. This takes longer than the ammonia eaters did. The old method of fishless cycling said that every time the ammonia level dropped, you added more to feed the ammonia eaters (everyone used to believe they starved if not fed every 24 hours) but this caused the nitrite level to get so high the cycle stalled because the nitrite eaters won't grow at high nitrite levels - once the tank is cycled and has fish there will only ever be trace amounts of nitrite as the bacteria will eat it as fast as it's made.
We now know that the ammonia eaters won't starve if they aren't fed every 24 hours but we still do need to give them some food. The new method is designed to keep the amount of added ammonia to a minimum to stop the nitrite level ever getting high enough to stall the cycle. So we add a dose of ammonia at the start and wait till the ammonia level drops low then a second dose. After that, we wait till ammonia drops to zero with a nitrite of over 1 and add a smaller dose. And keep on doing this, adding a small dose every 4th day until the nitrite reading drops below 1, together with an ammonia reading below 0.25. Once this stage has been reached, a third large dose of ammonia is added and hopefully both readings are zero after 24 hours.

Your problem seems to be that your ammonia doesn't drop below 1 though you have zero for nitrite. The question is, is your nitrite zero because you have as many nitrite eaters as necessary to eat all the ammonia your few ammonia eaters are making, or is it zero because the ammonia eaters aren't doing anything and not making any nitrite.
If you add enough ammonia to get the level to 3ppm then monitor both ammonia and nitrite every 12 hours, this should show a few things.
If the ammonia does drop, we know you have some ammonia eaters.
If the ammonia level drops, you see a blip in nitrite and then that too drops, we know you have some nitrite eaters.
If your ammonia never drops below 0.5 to 1 but your nitrite drops to zero, there is something odd going on. I know that so many people say they have never seen a zero colour for ammonia even with tanks that have been running for years, but it is usually the 0.25 colour they see. Is it just that you are seeing an extreme version of this?

Could you do a couple more tests, please? Test both your tap water and your tank water for nitrAte; do it at the same time so you can compare the colours of the two tubes to each other rather than the test card. Are they the same colour or is one a more reddish orange than the other?
If the tank is redder that the tap test, you are making nitrate. If they are the same, you are not making nitrate. If the tap colour is darker, you are not making nitrate and the plants are using some nitrate that got into the tank when you first filled it up.

Day 1 Ammo = 0.25 Nitrite =0 
Day 2 Dosed tank with Ammo up to 3ppm
Day 5 Ammo = 1.00  Nitrite = 0.50
Day 8 Ammo = 0.50 Nitrite = 2.00  added Ammonia up to 3 ppm
Day 10 - 17   Ammo = 2.00 Nit = 2.00
DAY 17 did 25% water change   
Day 17 - 20  Ammo = 1.00 Nit = 2.00
Day 20 did 50% water change Ammo = 0.50 Nit = 2.00 added Ammonia up to 3.ppm
Day 22 -26 Ammo = 2.00 Nitrate didn't test. Added 9ml of Waterlife Bacterlife
Day 27 Ammo = 2.00 Nitrite 2-6 ppm did 50% water change
Day 29 Ammo = 1.00  Nit =  2.00 Added old filter sponge from recently cycled tank and Bacterlife
Day 31 -33 Ammo = 0.50  Nit = 2-5 ppm Added Ammo up to 2.0ppm

Day 34 Ammo = 0.50-1   Nit = 0.50
Day 35 Ammo = 1.00      Nit = 0.25
Day 37 Ammo = 1-2       Nit = 0         (first 0) Added Ammo up to 4 ppm
Day 38 Ammo = 1          Nit = 0       
Day 39 Ammo = 0.50-1  Nit = 0         Added Ammo up to 2.00 ppm
Day 40 Ammo = 2.00     Nit = 0
Day 41 Ammo = 1.00     Nit = 0




 

Hi Fiona, i'm getting high Nitrate readings 20- 40 it's Maidenhead Aquatics saying it is actually 0 ?