Fishless Cycle With Ammonia...

[bogwood]

Ammonia has dropped from 6ppm last night to 0.8ppm tonight (24hrs seems too quick?). Nitrites are 'deep red' off the chart (peaked?). I don't have a Nitrate kit yet - do I need one? I know I have to keep 'feeding' small amounts of ammonia daily - but for how long? When do I stop putting in ammonia completely?

 

[Vegan Peaches]

stop putting ammonia in when you can put 5 ppm ammonia in your tank and within a few hours it goes to 0 ppm ammonia and 0 ppm nitrItes.

 

[kris-b-]

24 hours seems way too quick for it to drop, have you seeded the tank in any way? You stop adding ammonia when it and nitrites drop back to zero after 12 hours.

 

[rdd1952]

That does seem too quick unless you seeded the tank with media from another tank or the Cycle really did work. Add enough ammonia to raise the level back up to about 4 or 5 ppm and see how long it tanks for it to drop back again. If it drops back in about 24 hours again, then you are well on your way to being cycled. As kris-b- said, you will need to continue to add ammonia every time it drops until the nitrite also drops. Otherwise the bacteria you have already developed to process the ammonia will die off from lask of food.

 

[bogwood]

Ammonia was '0' (clear) this morning around 10am... I brought the ammonia level back up to '4' and went to work. Just back and checked again - ammonia is now showing just over '2' at 7pm (9hrs from '4' to '2'). Yes, I added Nutrafin Cycle bacteria additive and some flaked food before the ammonia - and the tank has live plants in if this means anything (looking healthy and new roots showing). I've just checked the Nitr'i'te level too... it's deep red, off the chart. If tmrw morning at 10 ammonia is back to clear('0') that means it will have gone from '4' to '0' in 24 hours... what do I do then? Keep feeding a little ammonia each day? and add more Nutrafin Cycle to help the nitr'i'te bacteria to grow?

 

[rdd1952]

It sounds like you definitly have the ammonia spike over and now just need to keep the those bacteria fed until the nitrite drops and you can add fish. Just keep raising the ammonia up to around 2 to 4 ppm everytime it drops back to zero until the nitrite finally drops. How long has it been since you add ammonia to start?

 

[bogwood]

Thanks rdd1952... I added dechlorinated water, fish flakes and nutrafin cycle to the new tank set up last Thursday... last Saturday forum members advised me to actually 'put' some ammonia in to kick start the process!! (as I had no ammonia reading)... which I did on Monday just gone. So it has been a week only in total: 3 days with Cycle/fish flake and 4 days (to tonight) for the ammonia levels to do what I said above.... seems very quick - can test kits lie?!

 

[rdd1952]

Tests can be inaccurate but it doesn't sound like that's your problem since you get a reading and then it drops back to zero. If it was a faulty test kit, you would probably get an incorrect reading that didn't change. Just adding the actual ammonia on Monday does seem fast that it has already dropped but a fishless cycle can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 5 or 6 weeks and your's sounds as if it will be in the 2 to 3 week range so not terrribly abnormal. The nitrite will take longer to dlrop to zero than the ammonia did though so it will probably be sometime next week or the week after.

 

[Disco]

Your ammonis level has dropped as I would expect using cycle daily as I previously suggested but if your nitrite is that high expect another couple of weeks of waiting.