Nitrogen Cycle Questions

[GregJames]

Ok, I've had the live rock in a 30gal tank for about 3-4 weeks now. About 2 days after adding it, ammonia spiked through the roof as I expected. I also noticed nitrites and nitrates start to rise. A week after that, ammonia went down to almost non-existent white nitrites and nitrates continue to stay peaked as of today.
My question is this, I read that in order to build the biological filter you need to have ammonia present, but was my initial spike enough, or do I need to add something else to decay?

(I didn't start the water tests until I saw the ammonia begin to drop on the SeaChem card.)

 

[nmotz]

If you've already had an ammonia spike then you should be good to go as far as ammonia is concerned, but you'll want to wait for the nitrites to drop to zero before the tank is fully cycled.

Many people cycle their tanks using only LR. I added pure ammonia to my tank to initiate the cycle, but as long as you get a spike in ammonia that is then processed to nitrites and then nitrates, you're good to go.

 

[thegrun]

I agree you do not need to add any more ammonia, the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites can live up to a year without starving. How are you testing for nitrites? 150 ppm is very high, if you are sure the reading is correct I would make a large water change to bring them down to below 10ppm or your cycle is going to take a long time to complete.

 

[GregJames]

I am currently using test strips to test for nitrites. For some reason when I ordered my Profi Tests it didn't include nitrites.

EDIT: also, for Nitrites on the photo attached, it should read 10.0+ instead of 150+

 

[GregJames]

Nitrogen Cycle Questions

 

[thegrun]

Test strips and not very accurate, it might be worth having your local fish shop run a test with a decent test kit like Salifert, Elos or Red Sea Pro, but once your cycle is done you will probably never test for nitrites again.