0 ammonia during cycling?

Hey Guys, Another question! Some day soon ill hopefully be able to start answering instead of asking all the time!

Planted tank 2 weeks old now. Tested water Friday night, did 40% water change as planned, tested water again this evening, and same results. I have 0 ammonia, but very high nitrite and nitrate levels, i.e. at the end top of the colour spectrum on API chart. Is this normal? I thought I needed ammonia to get the cycle going.

Over past 2 weeks being doing 30% - 40% water changes every 2 - 3 days. Have been adding little bits of food as well, last 5 days I have 2 SAE in there to help with cycling and algae control.

Am I on track?

yes, looks like you are doing everything correctly, the Bacteria are working well changing Ammonia to Nitrites, then Nitrates. You wouldn't be getting Nitrites and Nitrates if Ammonia hadn't been present to kick things off.

I'm not suggesting your test kit is old, given you are doing the right thing, cycling the Tank, this is for any newbies who may not know. Always check the sell by date on Test kits, it does make a difference. (not in your case)

Kev.

You need to keep cycling the tank untill all you see is 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrate, and a good bit of nitrate. This is when you know the tank is able to process ammonia from fish waste and uneaten food straight to nitrate.

Don't forget to feed your tank a small amount of food each day. The same amount as you would give the number of fish going to live in the tank. This way, you know that when the tank is finished cycling, it will be able to handle the fish right off the bat with no danger to the fishies.

Has the tank been seeded with any bottle of 'beneficial bacteria;?
Are you using any fertilisers for the plants?

The answer to zero ammonia could depend on actually having no ammonia when you did your test or a duff testing system.

The readings on ammonia will also depend on when they are taken. The conversion of ammonia to nitrites is not instantaneous, if a test is taken immediately after free ammonia or ammonium salts are released into the tank water you are likely to get a positive ammonia reading; if taken sometime after that, then that time may have been enough time for the nitrosifying bacteria to convert it to nitrites (hence you could zero).

A real test would be test the time taken to convert a positive ammonia reading to a zero one: the faster, the more efficient your biological colony.

When using food to seed a tank, there is another set of baceteria that need to get going first.....the ammonification bacteria. You could add food, and if there is no ammonification bacteria at work then you may not see an ammonia spike. That does not necessarily mean your tank is safe for fish......freshwater fish excrete ammonia directly.

However, the ammonification bacteria do tend to establish themselves pretty rapidly and much more easily than it takes to establish nitrosofying and nitrofying bacteria.

Now, doing a full stress test on a water system is not easy.....ie it is pretty difficult to know or predict how much your new tank can cope with.

Hence, even with what may be called a 'fully cycled tank', it is advised to take things very carefully in adding fish.
The reality is that you cannot 'fully cycle' a tank suitable for fish unless you have had a limited number of fish in there for some time as there is more to this than ammonia etc.

Ian

Just wondering if he was to use an ammonia locking agent like prime would that not help him......?

I havnt used it but i have been told about by people they have used it to set a tank up in an emergencey, and the fish where perfectly fine....?

The lad who told me had a big african setup he transfered his fish into the new tank and never had a problems didnt lose a fish no illness.

I know its not the best way to go about setting up a tank but that a long with say filter media from another setup would be ok to use....?

Alan

Ammonia adsorbing stuff is fine for emergencies but not great as a long-term set-up starter.

It gives temporary short-term results.

ian