When And How Exactly To End Fishless Cycle

[dyani]

Hello all! I have been going through the fishless cycle, and it's going well. My question is, once the nitrite readings spike and go down, then the nitrate readings go up, should I stop adding ammonia before I introduce fish? Obviously I will do a partial water change before I add the fish so the nitrates are gone. But should I add like a tiny amount of ammonia at any point between the cycle ending and me actually getting a fish? Because there will most likely be a waiting period before I get my fish. Will all the bacteria die?! Yeah. That's my question.

 

[Junior Gent]

you need to keep adding the ammonia until the fish arrive otherwise the bacteria will die off, you should have a rough idea as to how long your tank takes to process the ammonia so time that around the fish arriving.

 

[OldMan47]

When both ammonia and nitrite are going to zero in about 12 hours, you stop adding ammonia, do a huge, over 90%, water change and add your new fish. The water change removes most of the nitrates that have built up during the cycle.