Aquarium - Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates

adrian-collier-aquarium-190501-01.jpeg

Nitrites are still hovering around 1.0 ppm. I found an interesting post on reddit regarding nitrites in the aquarium. I wanted to save the discussion for future reference. Below is the part that interested me.


Let's walk through what these levels would probably look like throughout a 1 month cycle (obviously things can be a little different based on temperature, hardness, etc) This won't follow the 7 hours/13 hours reproductions since that's 100% efficiency. Realistically, a true cycle should go a bit quicker since I set the nitrobacter to reproduce at 24 hours, definitely longer than it would take them normally. Will also assume you brought it back to 4 ppm each day, even though you can't really tell the difference between 3.8 and 4.

Day------Amm---Nitrite---Nitrate

Day 1 .....4.0.........0...........0
Day 2 .....4.0.........0...........0
Day 3 .....4.0.........0...........0
Day 4 .....4.0.........0...........0
Day 5 .....4.0.........0...........0
Day 6 ....3.99......0.03.........0
Day 7 ....3.95......0.14.........0
Day 8 .....3.8.......0.56.........0
Day 9 .....3.2........2.8..........0
Day 10 ....0.8.......11.8.........0
Day 11 .....0..........23..........0
Day 12 .....0........33.2..........0
Day 13 .....0........44.4..........0
Day 14 .....0........55.6..........0
Day 15 .....0........66.8..........0
Day 16 .....0.........78..........0.1
Day 17 .....0.........89..........0.3
Day 18 .....0........99.9........0.7
Day 19 .....0.......110.5........1.5
Day 20 .....0.......120.5........3.1
Day 21 .....0.......129.4........6.3
Day 22 .....0.......135.9........12.7
Day 23 .....0.......137.7........25.5
Day 24 .....0........130..........51.1
Day 25 .....0.......103.6.......102.3
Day 26 .....0........39.5........204.7
Day 27 .....0.........0...........274.1
Day 28 .....0.........0...........289.7

Notice that from day 10 to day 26 your nitrites are beyond what your test kit can read. Over two weeks of no noticeable change in test results unless you test nitrates as well. Edit2, also notice that you go from 8 times what your nitrite test can read (39.5 ppm on day 26) to 0 ppm nitrates overnight.

Edit,
Another thing to notice is that if you only dose 2 ppm ammonia instead of 4 ppm from the day it 0's onward, you will produce half as much nitrite from then on. Since the nitrobacter are multiplying exponentially, this is only saving you 1 day on your cycle and you are ending up with half as many nitrosomonas in the end. There is no reason to do this.


Seattle, WA.

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