Ammonia

[artist55]

Hi all, I'm a bit confused. I have a 30 gal setup which is 3 weeks old and has 4 damsels in it. I have been testing the Nitrite/Nitrate levels and they are still very high. The Ammonia on the other hand is at 0. Does this seem normal? Thanks for any help. :help:

 

[birdy]

Yes, ammonia is the first stage of the cycle, once you have enough bacteria to handle the ammonia then the levels will go down, then you have to wait for the Nitrite to go down, then the nitrates will drop some, but usually you will need to do water changes to get them down to under 20.

 

[artist55]

Thanks very much for the reply. I have done 1 water change of 3 gallons, 10%. How often should I be doing them? The fish seem just fine, not breathing hard or hovering.

 

[birdy]

Generally cycling with fish is not recommended anymore, but now that you are over the ammonia stage you really don't have to worry about the fish being in distress anymore.
I would keep doing 10% water changes once a week, until the nitrite and nitrate levels come down also.

 

[chadman]

i also made the mistake of cycling with fish...my lfs told me i would be fine and i did not know better at the time...i have been fortunate because my ammonia levels never rose over 1 so i only had two fatalities and they were due to the fact that i did not know about acclimating fish with a drip and it turns out that the one lfs in my area has a lot of chemicals and such in there water and i did not drip acclimate....woops!luckily they were only dominos and there were five dollars or so a piece

 

[chadman]

i have over 70lbs of lr in my 30g which i am sure as helped with keeping the levels down