Too Many Issues To Have An Accurate Topic Title

[Ch4rlie]

 
Now I'm going to disagree with both of you and suggest that 50-70% would be ideal

  The reason being that you want to get your ammonia under 0.5ppm asap but with a pH of 7.2 they should be able to cope with 0.25 - 0.5ppm for a short while.

 
+1 on that, that's a good suggestion I defer to your better knowledge of these things as am still a newbie really, perhaps I should not have said 90% but that was based on maths and assuming trying to get ammonia to below 0.25 was best thing to do.
 
Good to learn these things.

 

[BriansAquarium]

Im using prime in my fish in cycle, and I works great. Be prepared to do 50-75% water changes every few days though as Prime only works so well ( will work better and better as your bacteria colonize). Also, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR FILTER. Your ammonia will peak, then come back down, then your nitrites will peak and come back down. nitrates will steadily rise when nitrite presents itself and will always be present in your tank (which Is why you need the weakly water changes to lower your nitrate levels) when your ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and you have nitrates, you are fully cycled.

 

[Be4st]

So... An update to my cycling so far. I have continued to do daily water changes of 30%. I am aiming to keep my ammonia at 0.25 or below but the past few days, the ammonia count has been slowing down so I have been doing 30% every 2 days.
 
I have tested the water every 12 hours since I last put my readings and they have been:
 
NH3 - 0.25 or lower
NO2 - 0
NO3 - Never gets higher than 20ppm before I do a water change.
 
It normally takes 24 hours to reach these readings, but the past week, its taken 48 hours so I slowed down on the water changing. I have also noticed that NO2 seems to be avoiding me. I have not seen a single trace of it at all since I have had the tank but I'm seeing NO3.
 
Is all of this normal? Also... How long do you think this fish-in cycle is going to take?

 

[daizeUK]

I'd be suspecting that your nitrite test is faulty.  Did an LFS confirm your results?

 

[Be4st]

Its not faulty. MY LFS know as much as a 2 year old when it comes to fish cycles... lol. I have used a slightly out of date Master Test Kit, 2 in-date API Master Test Kits (one belongs to a local fish keeper) and API 5 in 1 Test Strips and it always comes back the same

 

[Fluval-1200]

I only ever seen nitrite within the first week or 2 of setting up my tank lol, haven't seen it since.

 

[Meeresstille]

I actually agree with Ch4rlie's suggestion to do a 90% water change to keep the Ammonia as close to 0 as you can. The pH is not low, it is rather neutral, I don't think there is any help to expect from it to keep the toxicity lower. 
I also don't think there is any mini-cycle to worry about since the OP is in the midst, or rather the beginning, of a full-on cycle and constant exposure even to low level ammonia has shown to cause organ damage in fish!

 

[daizeUK]

If you are interested, TTA and I had a good long argument about this several moons ago. 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/412544-nitrogen-and-other-things/
TTA explains in post #5 why no action is required at 0.25ppm ammonia.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You are not seeing nitrite because you are following the wrong advice. lets start with ammonia and the facts.
 
In a tank with a pH of 7.5 and and unknown temp- so i will use 80F. at a total ammonia reading of 1 ppm the actual amount of harmful NH3 in the tank is .0205 ppm. Find me any trained fish biologist, ichthyologist or vet who will say that is harmful to fish over short term periods typical in a proper cycle..
 
If your ph is only 7.2 ammonia is simply not an issue short term at 1 ppm. At these parameters you can let it rise to 2 ppm and still only have .0409 ppm of NH3, many fish can handle this for a while too. Of course if your temp is a bit lower, then the numbers will be a bit lower.
 
In order to get nitrites you must have bacteria converting ammonia to nitrite. In order to have bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite, you need to have ammonia. Constantly doing the water changes as suggested in this thread is neither necessary not conducive to having a timely and same cycle.
 
Unless your fish show signs of distress, let the ammonia stay between 1 and 2 ppm before you change water. Only lower it to about 1 ppm when you do the change. Then when you see nitrite, there is again a better solution than water changing. You can add some plain old table salt to the tank in order to get chloride in. the chloride blocks the effects of nitrite inside the fish. This means you can let nitrite sit an not harm the fish. However, you will need to know how to calculate the amount of salt to add and how to do diluted nitrite testing since the API kit stops at 5 ppm and the level at which it starts to harm the bacteria rather than make then reproduce is about 16.4 ppm on the kit. I like to see it kept under 15 ppm. If it sounds complicated, it is a bit and it is also why fishless cycle is a preferred route. Its easier, safer and faster and no fish can be harmed.
 
And for those who wish to argue the ammonia facts, I would accept any scientific study which shows NH4 is a problem as opposed to NH3. Find any study on ammonia toxicity to fish we have in the hobby that isn't focussed on NH3 levels. They will report both NH3 and Total ammonia levels. And science mostly will use the nitrogen scale not the total ion scale used with most hobby kits. So,
 
5 ppm of ammonia-nitrogen =   6.4 ppm on the API kit
5 ppm of nitrite-nitrogen       = 16.4 ppm on the API kit
5 ppm of nitrate-nitrogen      = 22.1 ppm on the API kit
 
I can not even find research into NH4 alone, its all total ammonia and/or NH3.

 

[Be4st]

Thanks for the info guys. I wish I had read this 45 minutes earlier. I tested the water this morning and got a 0.25 reading but 45 mins ago when I tested, it was around 1.0 so I quickly did a 60% water change to bring it back down. I was worried about the fish getting stressed with that amount of change but they seemed playful. One tried swimming up the little stream of water coming out of my jug... lol. I will bear TTA's info in mind for future changes and wait until its nearly 2ppm.
 
I have one question regarding water changes if you guys don't mind answering. I'm not sure if what I am doing is OK or not. I have been doing this since day 1 and have had no deaths but still want to know. When I do my water changes, I turn off all equipment, empty 30% of the tank as usual, gravel vac all areas and empty my bucket. I then rinse it and fill it up with cold tap water and boil a kettle. Add the kettle contents to get the rough temp of the tank and then add dechlorinator. Normally its a few degrees higher than tank temp and I wait a few mins for temp to drop a bit. I try to have it within 2 degrees of tank temp when I add it back to the tank as to not distress my fish and I use a 1L measuring jug to pour back in while running it into my hand first to drop in half a degree or so. (I'm paranoid about the ever so slight temp difference). The fish don't seem to be bothered by it though so I guess its all good. Oh and I do all the other little jobs before I siphon. Its just the addition of new water that I'm concerned about.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It is a waste of energy to boil, plus it kills the kh in the water. Get a container big enough to hold your water change. A Rubbermaid that holds about 5 gals is fine. Fill it the day before you will change water and let the warmth of you place raise to room temp. If you use 3.5 gals for your avg. water change (your tank does not hold its advertised capacity), this would be about a 1/3 change. So any temperature change in the tank would be 1/3 of the difference between the tank temp and the temp of the new water. Not a big deal. Fish are usually not bother by a few degree change, especially when temporary.
 
Watch your fish, and check ammonia twice a day. If the fish seem distressed, get a test sample and then change water at least 50%. If the ammonia hits 2 ppm, change 50%. Do not allow ammonia to go over 2 ppm. Monitor the pH, if it rises all bets are off as the 1-2 ppm can become a lot lower.
 
Check for nitrites at least daily. By allowing ammonia to be at the levels suggested, it should mean nitrite shows up. This is dangerous to fish in a different way than ammonia. It will be handled differently as well. You are going to need some distilled water. A very clean measuring cup and possibly access to an decently accurate  gram scale down to 10ths of a gram. Are you sure you would not prefer to take the fish back to store for credit and continue the cycle without fish? Maybe you have a friend with tanks who would hold your fish for a few weeks? Or better yet lend you some cycled media or substrate from their tank?
 
Maybe somebody from this forum might live nearby and be willing to help. Adding bacteria does more to help a fish in cycle than almost anything else, the more you can get, the more it helps.
 
Please be sure to post your test results here and I will monitor the thread.
 
If you want to check what the NH3 level may be there is a calculator on a reef site. Select NH not NH-N; set the salinity to 0; enter your ammonia test result in ppm; enter your tank pH; enter your tank temp; select C or F and then hit Calculate. It will show you the ppm of NH3. At .05 ppm its an issue that needs immediate attention. http/www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/FreeAmmonia.php