Nitrogen cycle question

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BumbleinGrey

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Oct 9, 2008
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we are day 3 into our nitrogen cycle and i have been checking Ammonia , Nitrate , and Nitrite every day. Form what i have read your ammonia should be at .5 or so ppm and then Nitrite will go up and then eventually the Nitrate will go up.

this is the way my days have gone so far


Oct 8th Am 5 ppm , Ni 0 , Na 0
Oct 9th Am 5 (slightly paler dose not go to the next catagory), Ni 0 , Na 0
Oct 10th Am 5 (even paler still dose not go to the next level), Ni 0 , Na 5

perhaps someone could explane why the Na would be going up at all , wile we are still waiting for the Ni to do anything.
 
Ammonia , we are not useing fish flakes , or liveing fishes ... we are just useing Ammonia form the bottle
 
We're using a Hagen Nutrafin for the Ammonia. We have tested Nitrites with both Api and Hagen Nutrafin and got the same results.
 
Don't worry about NO3 yet. Just keep adding ammonia (if it's as concentrated as you can typically get it, 1mL is equal to about 4PPM for 40 gallons of water - if memory serves). Maintain ~5PPM ammonia and monitor NO2 as well - every other day until you have a reading. Maintain the routine until NO2 disappears, then do a NO3 test. It should, by this time, be pretty much off the charts, so you'll probably want to do a big water change, and retest NH3 and NO2. Bring NH3 back up to 4-5PPM.

When you can add 4-5PPM NH3 and have it and NO2 at zero the next day, do another big water change (like 90%, repeat until NO3 result is <5PPM, add some Prime and go buy fish). This may take less than a week, it may take 6 weeks. It will take less time if you seed your tank and/or filter with some used gravel or filter media from an established tank.
 
we have added filter medium form our 30 gallon brackish tank , and form our 5 Gallon snail breeding tank (to feed the puffers) . as well as decor form both tanks to see the bacteria. Also in addition to that we have also added the solution you can buy at fish stores that says it cycles tanks in a few weeks , its the dormant bacteria stuff. Just so you know what we seeded the tank with.

It was more or less curiosity of why the Na actually had a reading at all , when it shouldn't until the bacteria begin to convert Ni into Na .
 
have you added more ammonia since the initial 5ppm dose, or has it only barely gone down from the beginning? test your tap water and see if that has results for nitrate.
 
well i could test the nitrate levels in my tap water or give you the levels in my established brackish tank which are at zero.

sorry if i seem rude but this is a mystery to me more then anything elts which is the truth. i am just continentally cycling again and got something which is weird and should not happen .

and yes i tested both my snail tank and my puffer tank and both are at 0

although they have been both water changed late yesterday
 
well, nitrate levels in established tanks shouldn't *be* zero, there should always be some present if the tank is cycled and there aren't so many plants that all the nitrates are used up by them. so something is off - it may be your test kits. how old are they?
 
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