Is My Cycle Frozen

[caino]

I have been doing a fishless cycle from last monday, i was adding ammonia untill i got a reading of ~5 mg/l of ammonia, and adding some daily. On thursday my nitrites shot up to about 5ppm aswell. But the cycle seems to have frozen, i have not added any ammonia for the last 24 hours and the reading is still ~5ppm, is this the peak?

 

[BHornsey]

Hi,

When you say you've been adding ammonia daily, was it the full amount you put in to bring it to 5ppm initially? If so (and I think it is) then you have probably overdone it a bit.

You normally bring it up to 5ppm to start then monitor the level and add only enough to keep at 5ppm until NitrIte spikes.

After the nitrite spike, ammonia normally drops off quickly to zero but once you see the NitrIte spike you need to start putting in half the original first dose every day to continue feeding the ammonia reducing bacteria. You keep this up until nitrite drops back to zero.

You could probably do with a large water change (50+%) and start the half dosing from then.

Hope it all goes well.

 

[mark.w.jones]

id leave it til the ammonia drops down personally and not do the water change. You are probably near the point where you have enough ammonia bacteria to reduce your ammonia from 5ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours. Once you reach that point you are around 2 weeks away from finishing.

Leave it a day or so. If your ammonia doesnt drop then consider a water change.

 

[caino]

Thanks guys, there is nitrite in the water but i havenot hadded any ammonia in the last two days and it is still at ~5ppm