Dear Thor,
I have been pulling my hair out with this fishless cycling!!! After 19 days of cycling and finally being able to add fish, one week later my 3 new fish got ick. So....I had to treat with meds, and after the treatment did a 50% water change. In doing so, it raised my nitrite levels off the chart. So I took the fish out and put them in my 5 gal hex that i use in emergencies. I figured the meds did a number on my bacteria so I did another partial water change and added more bacteria and started my ammonia drops again always bringing them up around .2ppm to .4ppm.
My nitrites finally went down to 0 after 4 days and my nitrates were off the chart and my PH was 6.4. So I figured my nitrates caused the PH to drop so I did a 50% water change yesterday. after the water change my Ammonia was .25ppm 0 nitrites and my nitates between 10 to 20ppm. PH was 7.2 to 7.6 So I added ammonia yesterday back up to 4.0ppm and this morning my readings were ammonia .25ppm nitrite 0 and nitrate 20 to 40ppm and PH was 6.4.
My question is... what is causing my PH to drop so quickly???? Is this going to effect my cycle???? Do I need to do another partial water change to get the PH up again? Or do I just wait one more day if the ammonia level remains 0 and nitrites remain 0 after adding one more dose of ammonia. I was hoping I was nearing the end of my cycle but the ph has me puzzled!
Any advise you can give me would be helpful.
Kindest Regards
Lorraine Smith
