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Miracle of miracles!

Mav’s nitrite has gone down!

Hallelujah!

I realize that to anyone not cycling an aquarium for the first time, this is small peanuts.

You see, the nitrogen cycle for a new aquarium takes between 4-6 weeks.

It’s the process by which the animal’s waste builds up in the water and the toxic ammonia spikes, then the toxic nitrite spikes, then the good bacteria nitrates start to build up and spike, and finally the aquarium’s water has been fully cycled and enough good bacteria has built up to have a healthy environment for your aquatic friend.

Only, in all the research we did ahead of time, before we got Maverick, we somehow missed the whole nitrogen cycle thing.

And the importance of cycling a new aquarium before a fish is added.

Epic fail.

Basically, it’s a 4-6 week process of lots of stress and lots of toxic water, and that’s a lot for a delicate little animal to take.

So we did our research.

Everything we read basically said that if you didn’t do fishless cycling before hand, don’t expect your pet to live.

New tank syndrome is the leading cause of new fish deaths.

It was really disheartening, hearing we’d already screwed up and that she would likely die.

But we already had Mav, and there we nothing we could do but let the tank cycle, take care of her to the best of our ability, and hope for the best.

So we added some SeaChem Prime in to detoxify the ammonia and nitrite while they were spiking, and we lowered her water level to allow for increased oxygenation, and we did semi-frequent water changes with RO water, and we tested her water every other day.

She made it through the ammonia in a week.

But hid under her rock the whole time and rearranged her gravel and clearly was not amused.

Then came the nitrite spike.

Which has lasted for an agonizing two and a half weeks.

In which Mav hid under her rock and rearranged her gravel and was clearly not amused.

And I tested and tested and tested her water.

And her nitrite never went down.

Nothing but magenta, magenta and more magenta.

And I was convinced that we were doing something wrong and it was never going to go down and we were never going to see Mav scale another plant again.

And then I tested again yesterday morning…

Miracle of miracles!

Baby blue!!

Nitrite is back to zero and her nitrates are now at 10, which is an excellent sign that the cycle is almost over.

And she’s alive!

I’ve never been happier to see baby blue liquid in a test tube in my life.

So,

We expect that she’ll be out and about, back to her mischievous self in no time.

Scaling plants and attempting escapes and doing flips.

And eating again.

We hope.

But in the meantime,

For our next epic task, we’re planning a gravel switch-out in the next week or two.

From dyed white & blue gravel to natural stone.

Apparently the “no-flake” dye gravel is a liar.

Because it does flake.

And it clogs her filter with blue particles and makes her water dusty.

Plus, she’ll probably like the natural stone more anyway.

Since, you know, they don’t have bright blue and white gravel at the bottom of swampy ponds anyhow.

So we’re preparing to begin the one week, 10-step process (literally, 10 steps….would you like to see our note card?) of switching out 25 lbs. of gravel without switching out her water, ruining her newly cycled water, starting another ammonia or nitrite spike, or stressing her to death.

And then after that, if all goes well, we get her a tankmate to stalk.

Never a dull moment.

We live and learn.

And then love Mav.