cycle questions

[erock412]

i have 2 55's running right now, a fully cycled bare bottom tank with some LR and my livestock in it, and the other with a DSB and a bunch of LR cycling. I tested the water in the tank with the cycling LR and got these results:
1/6/09
pH 8.4
am 1.0
trite 0.5
trate 0
i did a pwc, 5 gal, and waited a day...
1/8/09
77 degrees
SG 1.023
pH 7.8
am 2.0
trite 0.5
trate 10
this is what i get from these readings, and i would like to know if i understand the cycle correctly... my ammonia raised over the last day, so that means the cycle is working towards it's peak, and the trates went way up, so that means that the LR in the tank IS converting the trites to trates and pwc's will lower the trates. is this correct? i'm guessing that my pH dropped like that b/c of the water change i did after my first reading. i didnt record the SG on my first reading, but it was super high, so i just took out some water and added fresh. what can i do to raise the pH, or will it happen naturally? i'm supposed to do pwc's during the cycle right? i feel like i read somewhere that i should even do complete water changes?

 

[geridoc]

Originally Posted by ERock412
http:///forum/post/2904717
i have 2 55's running right now, a fully cycled bare bottom tank with some LR and my livestock in it, and the other with a DSB and a bunch of LR cycling. I tested the water in the tank with the cycling LR and got these results:
1/6/09
pH 8.4
am 1.0
trite 0.5
trate 0
i did a pwc, 5 gal, and waited a day...
1/8/09
77 degrees
SG 1.023
pH 7.8
am 2.0
trite 0.5
trate 10
this is what i get from these readings, and i would like to know if i understand the cycle correctly... my ammonia raised over the last day, so that means the cycle is working towards it's peak, and the trates went way up, so that means that the LR in the tank IS converting the trites to trates and pwc's will lower the trates. is this correct? i'm guessing that my pH dropped like that b/c of the water change i did after my first reading. i didnt record the SG on my first reading, but it was super high, so i just took out some water and added fresh. what can i do to raise the pH, or will it happen naturally? i'm supposed to do pwc's during the cycle right? i feel like i read somewhere that i should even do complete water changes?
I'm not clear how you are cycling your tank. Are you using live fish - a bad (and cruel) idea since the ammonium levels are high enough to do real damage to fish. If there are no fish present, then there is absolutely no reason to change water unless the ammonium gets way too high so that bacterial growth is poisoned. It looks like something is raising ammonium, and it is being processed into nitrates. Eventually, trates will fall either due to post-cycle water changes or anaerobic processing by the lr.

 

[bang guy]

Yes, on everything except PH.
The PH will drop as accumulated metabolic acids increase.
The ammonia level is approaching the point where it will begin to kill the more delicate hitchhikers in your live rock. This will reduce the diversity in your system and increases the chances of Hairy rock syndrome.
I typically try to maintain ammonia below 0.5ppm and use very large water changes to accomplish this if I have to.

 

[texasmetal]

Don't do water changes until the cycle balances out and your tests show nothing but nitrates. Otherwise you're just wasting water and pro-longing the cycle.
From the looks of it the cycle is reaching its peak. Just let it do its thing, top it off occasionally, then worry about balancing out the pH and salinity when it's complete.

 

[erock412]

Originally Posted by GeriDoc
http:///forum/post/2904743
I'm not clear how you are cycling your tank.
i just have a tank with sand and LR, i think maybe a hermit or two may have snuck in there with the rock. it's complicated, but ill try to explain... i had a 55 running for a year before i put fish in, it was just LR and sand. i soon realized that 55g wasnt going to be big enough for me, so i took the water, LR, fish and cuc out, put it into a bare bottom 55g that i had bought for a baby alligator (cleaned it well, of course). i kept the sand in the old 55 DT, and added water and 60 more lbs of sand, mixed it up real good, would wait a day, mixed it, etc. i did that three times, just to suspend any detritus and release any ammonia, or nitrite trapped in the old sand bed. i just got a bunch of gorgeous LR from another swf.com board member, and i put it in with the sand. i had a spike when i added the new to old sand and mixed the two together, but all levels fell to within normal limits until i put the LR in, which i rinsed off as well as i could. im just assuming that there was some die-off from the LR i was generously given, and that's why i'm cycling.
the whole reason for the seperation of all my stuff into 2 tanks was because i was worried about disturbing the sand bed and releasing a bunch of toxins. everything will be going into a 125g on monday.