3rd water change in 3 days

[cartmanis]

So my epic saga continues.

Doing my 3rd 90% water change and refill in 3 days to see if we can get the nitrite readings to start making sense.

wish me luck, tank is draining now lol.

[Lady Hobbs]

I ended up getting rid of my nitrites and nitrates at the same time but I changed the water one time and only did 40%. I'm afraid all your water changing is keeping it set back. When I did my water change, my nitrites were only at .25 so barely there.

[cartmanis]

Well, 3rd water change, and finally I seem to get an expected reading on the nitrite. (ie, I tested after filling it back up, and it read 0 just like the tap water, versus through the roof).

I added just a bit of ammonia, and will let that sit for a while, and see later today if that gets converted to nitrite, and if the nitrite sticks around, or goes to 0.

I do have to do a nitrate reading and see if that is 0 now, or still high.

I think there was too much ammonia put in, and therefore the nitrites were too high for the tank to have enough room to grow enough to absorb it. (I did find some websites talking about having too much and causing problems).

We'll see how things test out.

[Lady Hobbs]

Could be true and also may be what happened when I dumped in too much ammonia in my tank. When I did the water change, nitrites disappeared never to return.

[cartmanis]

That's my hope.

I did a test after adding some ammonia.
Ammonia was around 1 (from my addition)
Nitrite was still 0
Nitrate was around 5-10 ppm

So almost normal readings. Going to test again later to see if I ended up with 0 ammonia, maybe some Nitrite, and whatever Nitrate.
Be nice if it came back 0, 0, and a bit lol. But I won't hold my breath.

[Cichlid_Man]

Hi,
Next time you do a fishless cycle try my method, please?

Ammonia is one way to go, but it is very strong and you have to be careful...

I think that's why you are getting weird readings.

Use shrimp skins in a media bag near a water flow...

Just leave them there and in a week or so the tank is ready for fish...

Shrimp creates ammonia....that's a lot different than putting ammonia in the water.

Good luck!

[Drumachine09]

Hi,
Next time you do a fishless cycle try my method, please?

Ammonia is one way to go, but it is very strong and you have to be careful...

I think that's why you are getting weird readings.

Use shrimp skins in a media bag near a water flow...

Just leave them there and in a week or so the tank is ready for fish...

Shrimp creates ammonia....that's a lot different than putting ammonia in the water.

Good luck!


Fish whisperer also reccomends this, as this i what i did with my SW

[cartmanis]

lol, after this, I'd pretty much try anything else.

Nitrites are up, Nitrates are increasing.

[kimmers318]

Well hopefully everything will work out for you this time and you will get the readings you expect! It is so frustrating to be trying to do everything right and it still screws up....I just felt that last week with the loss of my congo puffer

[Lady Hobbs]

What stinks and rots faster than shrimp? Sounds like a good idea.