Question: Cycling ammonia levels

[waterbabys]

Hello this is my first time cycling a tank should the ammonia levels rise before dropping? the ammonia level is about 2.0 now but last week was 0.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
General hardness 16
Carbonate hardness 6
PH 7.6
Chlorine 0.8 and the temp has risen to 22C
Is this all ok and what should I do next?
My newt is not in the tank

 

[achiinto]

It make sense to rise before drop. If has to rise to reach from 0 to 0.25 in the first place. As there is no rise in Nitrite, there is no drop in Ammonia. You have to wait for the bacteria colony to establish. You might also speed this up by introducing rocks/gravels from established cycled tank. This is normal for ammonia to build up if there is not bacteria in there yet, as long as you have food that decay in the tank, ammonia will build up. Hopefully your newts would be harmed by the ammonia, if you keep it in the same tank.

 

[shmifty5]

you may want to look into a small water change of 25%, ammonia above 1.00 ppm has been shown to be harmful to aquatic animals, if the newts are in the water that is cycling it is definately advised that weekly if not daily water changes should be performed until the ammonia begins to drop and nitrites begine to rise, once nitrites begin to rise the water changes can be relaxed a little bit and finally once nitrates are present you can just do the normal tank care.

it will definately be a while before your tank cycles but in the end it will be worth it.

 

[waterbabys]

My newt is in a much smaller bowl with the water being changed everyday.
I have put food in the tank to decay, but I don’t have anything to add from an established cycled tank is there nothing else I can do to speed things up ?

 

[shmifty5]

other than buying a bottled start i don't think there is anyway to speed it up, it takes quite a while for the bacteria to build up sufficiently.

 

[waterbabys]

Thank you the waiting game it is then

 

[Hedge]

Got any friends who keep fish? If so, the squeezings from a filter sponge with get the tank cycling much faster.

But yeah, cycling starts with an ammonia spike, once bacteria get established nitrite spikes and ammonia drops as bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite. After that nitrite levels drop as a second type of bacteria converts that to the far less harmful nitrate, nitrite levels drop and nitrate levels raise. Then it's just a matter of water changes or plants to avoid a dangerous build up of nitrate (however the levels for a dangerous nitrate build up are much higher than the other two).