The cycle

I understand the process and all the fun stuff but I have one question. Does nitrite ONLY begin when ammonia is at zero? because I have both in my tank as of now and was curious if it was supposed to be sequential like ammonia is zero then nitrite begins and when that's zero nitrate begins? Or was it normal for both to be present simultaneously?

I guess it would help to say that its been 6 days since I began cycling and as of 10 minutes ago my ammonia was at about 1.5-2ppm and nitrite was about 3ppm. I havn't tested nitrates because from my understanding there's no point just yet.

 

Yes
6 days? My tank took 4 days to cycle.

 

Everyone's cycle is different. rather you do it naturally or add live bacteria. That is normal. Depends if you used LR, LBR, or dead rock.

 

Different species of bacteria are involved in the nitrogen cycle so its not sequential - you can have Ammonia and Nitrite at the same time

bacteria develops to deal with Ammonia and converts it to Nitrite, but depending on how you cycle as stated above, you will have a period where the amount of Ammonia present is greater than the existing bacteria can deal with, they deal with what they can and this becomes nitrite , hence you can read both of these on test kits at the same time

sooner rather than latter, the ammonia processing species (multiple) will increase in order to deal with all Ammonia present. and at the same time the Nitrite proccessing species (multiple) will increase in numbers to deal with the additional Nitrite being proccessed

Nitrate, again depending on how you cycle - quality or rock etc, you can also start getting Nitrate readings even before your Ammonia and Nitrate has become 0



Steve

 

example cycle