so I'm on day 18 of my fishless cycle dosing ammonia. The tank is a 55 gallon with a 1xT5HO Hagen Glo fixture and Rena Filstar XP3 filter. The temp has been steady at 82F. I've been planting some here and there as I slowly get more plants, but it is not heavily planted.
For the last 10 days my nitrites have been reading off the chart (with API liquid test kit) so I was doing water changes daily to bring them back down to a readable level. During this time, I was dosing ammonia to keep it around 2-3ppm, and the nitrates were increasing slowly. I would do a water change in the morning (if the nitrites were not readable) but by the afternoon they would be off the chart again. The ammonia would always be down to either 0 or 0.25ppm after 24hrs.
Yesterday, we added an air stone to break the surface tension in one corner of the tank and planted some jungle val. I also skipped dosing ammonia because I wanted to give the nitrite>nitrate bacteria a chance to catch up (and I didn't do a water change).
This morning the water parameters read:
Ammonia: 0.5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
I would have assumed that the cycle had finished since the nitrites fell, but I'm a little concerned because the nitrates so low and the ammonia isn't at 0. I dosed back up to 2ppm a few hours ago and figured that I would check the parameters tomorrow morning and see what happens. Is this a common thing to see at the end of a fishless cycle, or did something happen that crashed the cycle?
edit:
well, I realized after I typed that out that I didn't include the pH values. normally the pH was hovering around 6.8-7, but now the pH is up around 7.8. I have no idea what happened, since I haven't added anything extra recently, the bubble stone is on a very low setting, and there is still a piece of driftwood in there that helped it stay slightly acidic. I guess this is where the problem occurred and it crashed, so I have to start the cycle again?
For the last 10 days my nitrites have been reading off the chart (with API liquid test kit) so I was doing water changes daily to bring them back down to a readable level. During this time, I was dosing ammonia to keep it around 2-3ppm, and the nitrates were increasing slowly. I would do a water change in the morning (if the nitrites were not readable) but by the afternoon they would be off the chart again. The ammonia would always be down to either 0 or 0.25ppm after 24hrs.
Yesterday, we added an air stone to break the surface tension in one corner of the tank and planted some jungle val. I also skipped dosing ammonia because I wanted to give the nitrite>nitrate bacteria a chance to catch up (and I didn't do a water change).
This morning the water parameters read:
Ammonia: 0.5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
I would have assumed that the cycle had finished since the nitrites fell, but I'm a little concerned because the nitrates so low and the ammonia isn't at 0. I dosed back up to 2ppm a few hours ago and figured that I would check the parameters tomorrow morning and see what happens. Is this a common thing to see at the end of a fishless cycle, or did something happen that crashed the cycle?
edit:
well, I realized after I typed that out that I didn't include the pH values. normally the pH was hovering around 6.8-7, but now the pH is up around 7.8. I have no idea what happened, since I haven't added anything extra recently, the bubble stone is on a very low setting, and there is still a piece of driftwood in there that helped it stay slightly acidic. I guess this is where the problem occurred and it crashed, so I have to start the cycle again?