I started cycling my fish tank well over a month ago using ammonia that I bought from Ace hardware. About a week ago I started getting my first trace of nitrites and at the same time I tested for nitrates and they had already started going up. I tested my tap water so I know things are changing. I was thinking that nitrites came first and then nitrates, not at the same time. Is something going wrong? I tested the water this morning and this is the test results: ammonia 1.0 ppm nitrite 5 ppm (it looked more dark purple than the chart) nitrate 40 ppm (my regular tap water test looked like it test around 3 ppm) Do I need to do anything to the fish tank or do I need to let it be?
It's possible the bacteria in your tank didn't read the same instruction book as you did.
Sometimes the nitrite "spike" is barely detectable. Different bacteria grow differently at various pH and temperature, so things don't always work exactly as expected.
If your ammonia is going down, and nitrate is going up, then you have some cycle action going on. Carry on, you are nearly there.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Ian
Sounds normal. The bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate have to build up in quantity to process the nitrite.
You are supposed to see rising nitrates while still reading nitrite and you should still be adding ammonia.
