Fishless cycling Question

[ECH2005]

We'll I've been fishless cycling for the past 2 weeks and today I checked my water levels and both my nitrates and nitrites are off the charts! My ammonia is still high, about 4-8ppm, and the nitrites read at or over 5ppm, and my nitrates are at or over 160ppm. What's going on?! I was assuming I'd have one spike of nitrites, a drop in ammonia, and then a spike in nitrates and then a drop in nitrites... I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this while fishless cycling? Or if anyone has suggestions on what I should do... should I do a water change, stop adding ammonia, or just keep doing what I've been doing until ammonia and nitrites are 0?

I think I might have started out adding a little too much ammonia (I got a little... excited with it, and it was off the charts for awhile... heh) so I did a water change a few days ago to lower those levels a little... could that have anything to do with it?

 

[daza]

you should be okay...when I did a fishless cycle for my current tank the nitrites were off the chart (>10mg/l) and the nitrates were off the chart (>250mg/l). All still came down to zero and the tank cycled as expected. So I would say stick with it and keep adding the same ammonia doses. The fact that nitrites and nitrates are present means that the cycle is taking place.

good luck with it.

 

[Slyspy]

Don't forget to halve your dosage of ammonia now that you have nitrites. Other than that I think this is normal (it went like that for me as well) so stick with it. Don't bother changing the water.

 

[daza]

good point slyspy, i forgot to mention that.

 

[ECH2005]

Yeah, I've started with the half dose of ammonia yesterday...

thanks for your help