stan22

Hi i have being doing a fishless cycle recently (you may have seen in other threads)

I have a big problem here my ammonia is at 5ppm but my nitrites and nitrates are both falling. My nitrites are at 1ppm and nitrates are barley 5ppm a couple of days ago they both were way higher please help have no clue whats going on.

Thanks
Stan

stan22

Yes let me give you the info

1. I am using waterlife liquid test kit
2. yes i did test there were nitrite- 0.03 ppm , nitrate - 4.5 ppm
3. I am using city water
4. I use interpet fresh start for the chlorine
5. The ph in my tank is 7.5 and before it was 7.9

Hope thats everything thanks again
Stan

stan22

Also my tank has stuff on the gravel looks like brown algae don't know if that has anything to do with it ?
Stan

stan22

Sorry i got those from my water board for my area. I have tested the nitrite and nitrate and there are none of them in the tap water

For your other questions
1. Both i think on the website it says Total chlorine 0.108 mg/l and Chloramine 0.03 mg/l.
2. yes i recently added plants but when the nitrites and nitrates started to fall I took them all out apart from some java moss.
3. No haven't done any water changes yet.
4. No i haven't cleaned anything yet i cleaned the media like you said.

what do you think is going on then ?

Thanks
Stan

RJRofFL

Hi Stan. It's Bob again.

To me, the fact that you have both NitrItes and NitrAtes indicates that the "cycling" is indeed going on. The troubling part is that the ammonia is not dropping.
Do you recall when I described the cycling process, I advised that when you see NitrItes appear you should cut your ammonia dosage in half?
Have you in fact done that?
Pure speculation here, but I suspect that you are perhaps adding more ammonia than the "good bacteria" can handle.
Although it is important to keep feeding this bacteria overkill can stall it.
I would suggest that once you reach ammonia levels of 5ppm, don't add more right away. Allow the good guys to consume it and gradually bring it back to 5ppm. The sign of success is when the good bacteria is able to consume the ammonia to zero within say a 24 hour period. You will see the ammonia drop faster as the good guys increase.
I think your tap water is fine. I also think you are close.
Keep us posted and good luck.

Bob