Cycle water parameter questions.

Hi everyone, so my new 75 gallon is currently cycling with 80lbs live sand and another 80lbs live rock. It has been up for almost 2 weeks now and the ammonia is finally reading 0 but my nitrites are as high as my test will go. I know that this is normal and from what I read it sounds like its cycling correctly. My question though is how long will the nitrite be crazy high? Will it kill everything living on/in the rock? And will the beneficial bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrites starve without anything left to create ammonia? Probably a stupid question just want to make sure I don't need to do anything before adding fish when parameters are good. Thanks for helping with everything so far. Definitely going to contribute to the site once all of these initial expenses are done!

 

it could be crazy high for another week or 2 JustinJames
or it may drop reasonably quickly - there are no hard and fast rules
each set up varies slightly

dont worry about the ammonia converting bacteria
decaying bacteria creates ammonia so to a degree they can be self regulating
and as your nitrite processing bacteria develop to cope with numbers, there will be a period when that bacteria is in excess in terms of avialable nutrients, so some will die off, create ammonia and continue to fuel the ammonia processing species

eventually stability will be reached and all being well, you will have colonies of each of the needed types/ species of bacteria, that fluctuate in terms of numbers in accordance with the bio load

CUC would be best things to add once your levels had zero's out
as they produce minimal waste but will help to increase bacteria populations
and make your set up more fish friendly IMO


Steve

 

It sounds like you're doing everything correctly. Nitrites should spike after ammonia spikes because Nitrites are a biproduct of the bacteria that feed on ammonia. A different bacteria feeds on Nitrite and turns it into Nitrate. You should see your Nitrite dropping over the next week or so.

Don't put any livestock in while the Nitrite reading is showing anything. Once that hits zero you are good to go to slowly add fish and other livestock, though I would wait on corals for a bit. You can always add a little frozen food to keep the bacteria colonies growing.

What other equipment do you have on your tank (lights, skimmer, etc.)?