Cycle issues / water parameters spike

[Kyle murfitt]

So in another post I'm setting up a 20 gallon fry tank. Been going 3 days now. Have  used a good chunk of substrate , plants,  and other material from my cycled tank in there. Added some easy green and iron and water conditioner when doing water changes on it the last 3 days. Using a older hob filter for now but getting in a ACO sponge filter in today that I'll put in my cycled tank until I move the mom over . 

 

So the parameters. 

24 hours after setup

Ammonia. 0.75 ppm. Nitrate. 5.0ppm. Nitrite. 1.0ppm. Ph. 7.8

 

Today.....

Ammonia 0.50. Nitrate. 80ppm. Nitrite. 2-5ppm. Ph. 7.4. 

Def a spike and not sure if this is just the tank running it course or if I've missed something. Any help would be awesome.  Thanks yall

[Biotope Biologist]

Sounds like the tank just running it's course. The pH drop is likely due to the plants respiring I wouldn't worry too much

 

Once you get the sponge seeded and brought in from the cycled tank everything should be established enough for fry.

[Kyle murfitt]

On 8/9/2021 at 2:56 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

Sounds like the tank just running it's course. The pH drop is likely due to the plants respiring I wouldn't worry too much

 

Once you get the sponge seeded and brought in from the cycled tank everything should be established enough for fry.

Weeeehw. Thanks for the feedback

[Jungle Fan]

Even if you use substrate and plants from another tank it will take time to cycle. The one thing that helps is if you are using old filter material that did not get to dry out in between the old tank and the new, and even then we can be talking weeks, or months before the tank is fully cycled and stabilized.

I would not stress after three days, the bacteria are in the process of colonizing the new tank. You can possibly speed it up a bit by adding bacteria with concoctions like Seachem Stability, or others but that is being debated just like everything else in our hobby.

Also generally if I set up a tank and plant it right away I usually wait a week before I start dosing ferts, regardless of how many plants there are because plants do tend to get a bit shocked when they are transferred, some more, some less, and while they are still in that state they don't use ferts all that much, algae however does  not experience that issue. So I now hold back with ferts for that one week because algae spores are endemic in the air and ready to go from day one.

Give it some time, your tank will be cycled before you know it with the substrate and plants. You can add inverts like snails, or shrimp as soon as your parameters seem to be stable because even should a nitrite spike occur it won't harm them because their blood is not hemoglobin based and the nitrite will not work as a blood toxin on them, and their waste products will help the cycling.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Jungle Fan