Tank Cycling Question

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Stu885
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Hi All am a newbie here and setting up my first aquarium at the moment.

I have Had my tank set up for 9 days now its a Aqua One UFO 550 corner tank, I have done loads of research so understand about the tank Cycling and what to be looking out for, but my tank has not shown any Ammonia levels at all since I started (been testing every day) but in the last 3 days its started showing Nitrite levels (not tested for Nitrates yet as not got the test kit for it yet). Its my understanding that in order for Nitrites to be produced Ammonia needs to be present as the bacteria in the filter media convert the Ammonia to Nitrites and another bacteria convert the Nitrites to Nitrates. I have been dosing the water with Seachem Stability following the instructions on the bottle to the letter, 1 bigger does when the water went in the tank first, Along with there Prime water conditioner, and the smaller doses for 7 days after that. I am doing a fish in cycle with 5 Cherry Barbs in the tank, I added them on either day 3 or 4 of the tank being set up as the Seachem Stability instructions says fish can be added anytime when using there product. (I know there are people who disagree with a fish in cycle but I have again done my research and picked a hardy fish and am doing partial water changes as well) I should also add that it is a planted tank (but only with gravel) with some of the easiest plants to care for to keep it simple for me as I am just starting out as was suggested to me by a Fish Shop Near Edinburgh that I visited on holiday and bought plants, ornaments, Gravel, test kit and the Seachem additives from with there there advice on what to do. I have tried to give as much info on my set up and what i have all done as I can in order to hopefully get a answer to my question.

The lack of Ammonia in my tank is causing me a bit of head scratching as mentioned before the Nitrites are present as you would expect during the cycling process, is it possible the Seachem Stability is either masking the Ammonia from being picked up by my test kit or is it really good stuff and got the Bactria in the filter working so fast its not come to detectable levels? but am starting to wonder if its not just a dud Ammonia test kit. Could it be possible for Nitrites to be present without Ammonia also?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice :)

Stuart
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mikeyw64
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If there is enough nitrifying bacteria to convert all the ammonia being produced by the fish to nitrite then it's entirely possible to see a 0 ammonia reading with a >0 nitrite reading and this is in fact what I saw for 6-7 weeks when I did my fish in cycle (4 platys in an 80l) on my first ever aquarium recently.

Where I saw a delay was in getting the next step done to get all the nitrites being converted to nitrates, these munchers in my experience take longer to reach the correct levels/ I was seeing nitrates starting to build up however it took probably another 2 weeks for the nitrite readings to stay at 0, the were always hovering around 0.25

All I would say is stick with doing the partial water changes and keep closely monitoring all 3 of the main parameters (ammonia,nitrite,nitrate) and be prepared if you see an ammonia or nitrite spike to do a larger water change plus a medicinal dose of Prime (you can go to 5 times normal dose) and be patient :)
Last edited by mikeyw64 on Tue Nov 26, 2019 23:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Stu885
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That's good to know, was starting to get a bit paranoid that my ammonia test was a dud and i wasn't seeing it, but all fish seem happy and active so al just keep doing what am doing and see how we go 😁
Stu885
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plankton
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Because you are following it to the letter, you may not see the ammonia. There are only 5 small cherry barbs which won't create that much anyway.
Some people don't see the nitrite either..... ;)
It may just be that you have really soft water which may help the Stability to work more efficiently.
Stu885
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That's good to know, i didn't think the stability would work that well, I've stopped using it now as that's the 8 days of dosage done as the instructions say so will see how we go from there, i think the waster is fairly soft up here compared to some places so that's probably helping 😁
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