New Edge Setup

Hi,
Bought the Edge as a present for my son's first pet. Started a fishless cycle, but when the ammonia level dropped to zero. Obviously my Nitrites peaked. A week later, there was no drop in the Nitrites. Guy at my fish store suggested that there wasn't sufficient waste to feed the bacteria, so we added a zebra Danio. A fortnight later, we do have Nitrate readings, but there has been almost no change in our Nitrites.
The only change we've seen, is some wispy green algae growing on the leaves of our silk plants.
We've has the tank set up for about a month now and have been using Cycle.
Is it a matter of just waiting for our Nitrites to drop down, or am I doing something wrong?

Probably just a matter of time. Just make sure you aren't putting untreated tap water into the tank for top offs and water changes. Any chlorine in the water is dangerous for your fish, but also extremely deadly to your bacteria colonies. Your fish store can recommend something to make your water safe. I use Easy Life liquid filter media, but pretty much every fish care company has something that does the job.

Other than that, time should take care of it.

Cheers,
Max

Thanks for the reply Max.
I did get a response on another forum. I carried out a massive water change to get rid of the massively high nitrites. I've been regularly testing my water with an API master test kit and carrying out water changes to keep the nitrites below 0.25ppm. Hoping the bacteria popolate sufficiently, to keep the nitrites at zero soon, as we'd like to start stocking. Been getting readings of 0.25ppm or lower for a week now, so hoping the cycle is almost there. As for adding any kind of 'filter starter', I found that at best nitriting bacteria were pormoted, but the nitrating bacteria just seems to take an age.

As a general rule of thumb, you don't want to do many water changes until you have little to no nitrite. Water changes can be disruptive to your young bacteria. You want bacteria to handle your ammonia and nitrite, and do water changes to clear out some nitrate, once it is showing up.

But maybe you were changing it to try and make it more comfortable for your Danio in there. I could understand that, I guess.

Anyways, I'm sure it work out pretty soon.

Cheers,
Max

if you know anyone with a mature fish tank ask them for some water out of it plus a few bits of biomedia to get you started

Yes that is correct, only do a water changed when your nitrites and ammonia levels are at 0ppm after 24. then your ready to add the fish so you do a 90% water change.

Also do not use Nutrafin cycle fluval provide, its crap. The stuff is not the right bacteria to start a proper cycle as its only temp bacteria that dies off after a week so it won't be good for a proepr cycle. Buy either biomature or pure/household ammonia from homebase or boots. Use it and keep the level at 4ppm, when the ammonia drops to below 2ppm top it up again to 5ppm, check this every 24 hours. Don't worry about sky high nitrites in the beginning of your cycle its fine, especially when you have plants. Just keep an eye on your ammonia and do a ph check once a week, you don't want a drastic change in Ph.

But definitely don't use Nutrifan Cycle it won't do the job.