Hi all! A little over a month ago, I decided to set up this cute little tank. She’s a 15L, with a pretty cool stick I found while I was out at the creek, some lava rock above and below the substrate, the substrate is fluval stratum. Plant-wise it’s stocked with a medium crypt, plenty of thin val, a banana lily, an anubias, java moss, peacock moss, willow moss and some water spangles.
Some snails hitchhiked from the store to the new tank, and I’ve pinched two shrimp from my 62L to put in the tank to help with the algae and add a small amount of bioload for the bacteria and plants.
I did a water test on monday and found out my tank was sitting on about 3.0ppm ammonia, 0.20ppm nitrite and 0.0ppm nitrates. Since then, I’ve been regularly dosing Seachem Stability, as that’s what I did when my 62L had an abrupt ammonia spike.
Today, I’d say we’re sitting on 0.6ppm ammonia, 0.7ppm nitrite and 0ppm nitrate.
I feel like my nanotank is tanking longer to cycle than my 62L, and I was a little confused when my nitrite started to spike before my ammonia had hit 0ppm, as my 62L had completely hit 0ppm before nitrites started to climb.
Essentially, do smaller tanks normally take longer to cycle than larger tanks? And is it normal for nitrite to start climbing before ammonias hit 0ppm?