Cycling question

[Bldgengineer]

My tank has been cycling for a little over 4 weeks now. This time last week my ammonia finally disappeared with nitrites at over 5ppm and nitrates hovering around 20ppm. I dosed the tank up to 1ppm ammonia to see how fast it would process it and it went away after around 36 hours. That was Thursday so I dosed it to 1ppm again and it only took around 24 hours this time. Nitrites still unmeasurable with the kit. I tested again today and nitrites are still over 5ppm(API test kit. It turns dark purple right away) but my nitrates are gone. I tested it again just to make sure I didn't screw anything up and got the same result. I've never had this happen before. Any ideas as to what might be going on? I'm thinking either my nitrite or nitrate test kit is bad.

It's a 10g tank setup with all BRS reefs aver dry rock and dry sand.

 

[bertoni]

The kits might be having a problem, or the ammonia load might have been too much for the processing capacity of the tank. Personally, I'd do some water changes to drop the nitrite level to 1 ppm or so. High levels might inhibit bacterial growth. I'd also stop dosing any ammonia. A tiny bit of fish food every day, maybe one small flake, should be more than enough to keep any bacteria going.

 

[Bldgengineer]

That's what I was afraid of so I started stirring up some change water. Thanks!

 

[Bldgengineer]

So I did a 50% wc last night and another 50% this morning. Let it run for about an hour and tested nitrites. First test showed no change but it didn't look as dark as it has been the past week so I retested with a 4:1 ratio (4 parts distilled water:1 part tank water) and got a reading of 0.5ppm. According to my math that's 2ppm. The api kit is so horrible between 2-5ppm that I thought this would be a better way of figuring out exactly where I am.

I'm thinking about leaving it where it is for now and testing again in a couple of days. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for all of the help!

 

[bertoni]

I'd just let it be for a few days, as you suggest. Sorry for the delay in posting: I've been on a one-day Memorial Day trip.

 

[Bldgengineer]

No problem! I appreciate the help! I'll check it out in a day or two and see where we're at

 

[tmz]

I'd use a little food instead of ammonia to be sure the nitrite oxidizers(nitrobacter, nitrospira) have enough phosphate as well as the nitrogen.