The strangest cycle i have ever seen.

[Pinky]

I have kept fish for 2 decades, so this isnt my first rodeo. 

Last sunday I set up a 10 gallon with some spiderwood, seriyu stone, river socks, black sand, water and prime. I left it overnight until I could go to the store to get my ammonia and bacteria, but I wanted to soake the spiderwood in the meantime. 

Anyway I got home from work on monday to a massive bacteria bloom, so I rushed out to get the ammonia i needed so it wouldnt crash. I figured this was bacteria from the spiderwood eating the ammonia from the tap (i have .75ppm all day everyday lol). 

I becan dosing up to 1PPM per day for 2 days, on the 12th i stopped dosing because the bacteria wasnt keeping up, but my nitirates contnued to slowly rise. my ammonia also rose over the next two days. The biofilm growing on the spiderwood is alo getting to be quite impressive. 

But tonight my nitrates went down by 1ppm overnight. I am baffled. Has anyone seen tthis before? Im so confused? I thought you needed to have a super deep established sandlayer to lose nitrates like this. 

I have never dosed the tank with any bactera, or other seeding product. 

 

[Native Keeper]

yo pinky it's me, Shelldweller from the discord server, I didn't know u were on here!