Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I've been fishless cycling my chop and flip system for going on two weeks. I used some Nite Out 2 to kickstart the bacteria. I was keeping ammonia at about 4ppm until I saw the first set of nitrites, then backed off to 2ppm. The next day, nitrites skyrocketed to over 5ppm, nitrates 50ppm. I was concerned I retarded the system, so I flushed and refilled two nights ago. I confirmed the media bed and new water we're 0ppm in ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. I added ammonia to get to .5ppm yesterday to slowly introduce. Today, my nitrites are back to over 5ppm, nitrates 20ppm.

This isn't a problem I expected to encounter, albeit my first system. Here are my specs:

IBC tote with 50 gallon media, 150 gallon fish tank
Media is 10÷ pea gravel on the bottom, 80÷hydroton and 10÷ pea gravel on the top.

I do have seedlings that germinated in this system and are doing very well.

Does anyone have any hints or advice on what I should do? Is this something I just need to wait out by keeping ammonia low And wait for the nitrites to calm down?

I’m no expert, but am thinking that you probably need to wait it out. You have bacteria converting ammonia to nitrite, but also need those that convert nitrite to nitrate. At least you don’t have to worry about toxic nitrite levels, since there aren’t any fish. It seems that pH will affect the ammonia cycle and nitrifying bacteria as well. Here’s a link to a nice publication from the NMSC aquaponics program.

https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/C ... lcome.html

If you haven’t already, I would recommend searching on “fishless” in this forum and you’ll find lots of great info.

Yeah, wait. Takes 2-6 weeks depending on temps.

Plant more plants, sit and drink a beer, watch the sunset and wait.

If you keep adding Ammonia the Nitrite will take longer to come down.