3 weeks into cycle, showing nitrates, am I nearly there??

[feedl0rd]

Hi guys,

Last week I posted here because I was having trouble with ammonia levels being incredibly low so I took your advice and added fish food daily. I started to get an ammonia reading (0.25ppm) but it never spiked too high. I added a bunch of food so I didn't want to add more (I can still see all the little shrimp food on the bottom of the tank). I never noticed a spike in nitrites or ammonia but I am now getting nitrates.

A week later and I am still getting a small ammonia reading (0.25ppm) with 0 Nitrites and 10-20ppm nitrates.

I have been dosing Seachem stability since the start, it is a 40Gal tank with about 20kg of live rock. I am also using a skimmer and seachem matrix in my sump.

My question is, am I nearly there? Am I just to wait until the nitrite and ammonia are consistently 0?

Thank you for any help, its greatly appreciated.

 

[mal7887]

You will want to wait for ammonia to be zero. If you are starting to read nitrates that's a good thing, that means ammonia is being broken down.

 

[feedl0rd]

You will want to wait for ammonia to be zero. If you are starting to read nitrates that's a good thing, that means ammonia is being broken down.

Thanks for the response. I agree with the ammonia call, how long does this usually take? It is only 0.25ppm of ammonia to break down. Also, am I to do a water change after the cycle?

 

[RobZilla04]

Did you already go through the huge algae blooms?

 

[scooter31707]

Are you reading any Nirites? I bet the 0.25ppm ammonia is coming from a API test kit. They show a false reading of 0.25ppm for ammonia. So you may be cycled. The best way to know is to get pure ammonia, dosing the tank to 2-3ppm and if the tank is cycled it should convert to nirates within 24 hours.

 

[Fbrondum]

If you bought wet rock you could indeed be almost there. I had the same type of cycle. All wet live rock never got an ammonia spike never saw nitrite spike only got to about 5ppm nitrate after feeding the tank through week 4 because I wasn't sure. Had my LFS test my water before adding anything and this is my tank now 2 months in. In a few days I'd be willing to bet you will see some diatoms if you haven't already.

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