skipping the nitrites stage

**VRB** · 11-30-2012, 01:02 PM

Is it possible for a tank to skip the nitrites stage all together? My tank is .25 ammonia 0 nitrites and 5.0 nitrates. I test almost every day and I have never seen any nitrites on my API tests. Is this possible?

I did seed my tank with filter media from an established aquarium. I also used Seachem stability. Tank has been running for a month and a half

Thanks to all that help

**Tiari** · 11-30-2012, 01:05 PM

This happened with one of my tanks. Nitrites never appeared on the test kit. I have no idea how that happened, I must have completely missed them when they showed up, though I tested every other day.

**fishmommie** · 11-30-2012, 01:16 PM

Yep, it can happen. the spike can be very fast and you could miss it. BUT, you're still showing .25 ammonia so your cycle isn't complete yet. the nitrites might still come. When I cycled my 30 with fish, nitrates showed up before nitrites. If you're doing a lot of water changes to keep your ammonia below .50, (and good for you if you are!) then it's just going to take a while to get it fully cycled. In my case it was almost 4 months :o(

**CrackFox** · 12-04-2012, 12:02 AM

Originally Posted by fishmommie

Yep, it can happen. the spike can be very fast and you could miss it. BUT, you're still showing .25 ammonia so your cycle isn't complete yet. the nitrites might still come. When I cycled my 30 with fish, nitrates showed up before nitrites. If you're doing a lot of water changes to keep your ammonia below .50, (and good for you if you are!) then it's just going to take a while to get it fully cycled. In my case it was almost 4 months :o(

I'm three weeks into my fishless cycle and I have Nitrate readings but no nitrite. The last few days i've been getting trace amounts of Nitrite (not even enough to say it's 0.25ppm) and by the morning it disappears. I'm still struggling with the ammonia dropping as it should, so my tank is not cycled, but yes. I think I have also skipped the nitrite stage.