Nitrates WAY to high during cycle!

[ImNotLion]

So I went pure ammonia route and it seems I may have added to much my nitrates are above 80ppm. They have never been that high, should I just wait it out or what?

[Reefmedic79]

How long has your tank been cycling? How high is too high?

A water change can't hurt or you can wait it out.

[Aquaticchaos]

How far into the cycle are you?

[wooden_reefer]

Originally Posted by ImNotLion

So I went pure ammonia route and it seems I may have added to much my nitrates are above 80ppm. They have never been that high, should I just wait it out or what?

This can happen more when you do not know the concentration of the ammonia from a bottle.

If you allow ammonia to be generated by decay, you will have a better idea of how much ammmonia you have added by the protein you have added.

About 6 grams of dry protein decays to give one gram of nitrogen in ammonia.

You do not have to add very much ammonia if you plan to keep the water you cycle with, just enough. If you do not plan to keep the water, you don't care.

[ImNotLion]

im only about 4 days in so i know i have a ways to go im just concerned with my levels. Will it slowly go down or do i need to do a WC?

[Aquaticchaos]

Are you doing regular water changes?

[11f150]

Did you already have rock or sand from a established tank?

[Reefmedic79]

It will go down on it's own, how long is the big unknown.

[ImNotLion]

I have never done a water change til my cycle was done but my levels has never been so high. I took old reef rock from my old broke down tank and soaked and sun dried them for weeks before I used em so there was no die off

[Touring]

just wait it out.

[whitemarlin]

you can't test for Nitrates till your Nitrites have dropped your getting a false reading from the N03 test

[Cymonous]

Just wait it out. Don't do any water changes till your cycle is done.

[cap032]

Originally Posted by whitemarlin

you can't test for Nitrates till your Nitrites have dropped your getting a false reading from the N03 test

+1 with what whitemarlin said. Right now you dont even need to be testing for nitrates. You should be testing for ammonia and nitrites. Make sure you dont dose either of these above 5ppm. If you do, it can stall your cycle and you would need to do a water change to bring them down (without disturbing the sandbed). Add more ammonia when both of these levels test at 0-0.5ppm. When adding ammonia, add enough to bring ammonia up to 2-3ppm. When your ammonia and nitrites can be processed in 24hrs, you are cycled. Then you test nitrates and do a water change to lower them before adding your fish, if they test high. Your nitrates will not come down on there own. It takes a looooong time for any nitrate reducing bacteria to develop. Again though, they arent a concern until the cycle is complete.

[coralsnaked]

+1 with what whitemarlin and cap 032 said. Most important is to test for Ammonia and NITRITE, and the presense of Nitite will give you false Nitrate readings anyway. You want to see when these drop then test for Nitrates to determine how long it takes to turn the ammonia into nitrates to determine the strenght of the bio system. 24 hours for 1 ppm of ammonia to drop to 0 and be converted into Nitrate is good.

Merry Skerry

[ImNotLion]

K, I will post some results after work today, idk y I didn't think to test ammonia. Been out a while haha. If its to high I need to do a water change to get it to 5ppm?

[Cymonous]

No, do not do a water change. Let it go through the cycle on its own. You don't want to reduce the ammonia. The ammonia will go down on its own when it changes to Nitrites, then to Nitrates.

[ImNotLion]

So no matter what the ammonia is at I should just let it go? Wht if its off the charts?

[Spyderturbo007]

Just be patient and let it run it's course. A good tip when it comes to this hobby is to go slow when you do anything.

[11f150]

Originally Posted by ImNotLion

I have never done a water change til my cycle was done but my levels has never been so high. I took old reef rock from my old broke down tank and soaked and sun dried them for weeks before I used em so there was no die off

There will probably still be die off imo

[cap032]

Originally Posted by ImNotLion

So no matter what the ammonia is at I should just let it go? Wht if its off the charts?

If its over 5ppm, yes. You do a water change if you dont see it drop in a few days, otherwise you are in for a looooong cycle. If ammonia or nitrite get over 5ppm, it can stall your cycle.

[SushiGirl]

Our ammonia was off the chart and it didn't stall the cycle. It just took forever doing big water changes to get the resulting off-the-chart nitrate down LOL.

You're only 4 days in, let it work.

[SantaMonica]

You can also let some algae grow... it will suck the ammonia/ammonium/nitrite/nitrate/phosphate right up.

[ImNotLion]

I'm all good with a long cycle, it lets me save money haha. I'm running GFO so my phosphates are pretty much non existent I had a bad algae problem with my last tank so I'm being cautious with this one

[SGT_York]

Add deisrable algaes, doing water changes will just weaken your cycle and make your tank less stable in the medium run. Don't add fish until your ammonia, nitrites are 0 and your nitrate lowers to an acceptable level then do a large water change.

[ImNotLion]

I made a DIY HOB fuge and tried to grow some algae but it never worked. Maybe I don't have the green thumb for the good algae