I did a fishless cycle that was definitely finished (took around 4 weeks).
At the end of the cycle, I ran out of my dechlorinator and switched to prime. Prime says to add 2 drops to 1 gallon, which seems like a very small amount, or "4 drops may be used safely" for high chloramine. I used 2 drops.
When I added fish, I have steadily climbing ammonia. I thought it was just more ammonia than I had been adding.
However, when I tested in morning as lights were out so plants couldnt be using nitrate, I had ammonia present with 0 nitrite or nitrate. So my cycle has completely crashed.
Does this mean I need to be double dosing prime? Is prime even any good. Prime is supposed to convert ammonia to ammonium; I wonder if this was converting all the ammonia I had been adding and starved the bacteria
I guess I am doing a fish-in cycle now... what a pain. Since all the bacteria are dead, I guess I need to get bacteria to seed the tank?
At the end of the cycle, I ran out of my dechlorinator and switched to prime. Prime says to add 2 drops to 1 gallon, which seems like a very small amount, or "4 drops may be used safely" for high chloramine. I used 2 drops.
When I added fish, I have steadily climbing ammonia. I thought it was just more ammonia than I had been adding.
However, when I tested in morning as lights were out so plants couldnt be using nitrate, I had ammonia present with 0 nitrite or nitrate. So my cycle has completely crashed.
Does this mean I need to be double dosing prime? Is prime even any good. Prime is supposed to convert ammonia to ammonium; I wonder if this was converting all the ammonia I had been adding and starved the bacteria
I guess I am doing a fish-in cycle now... what a pain. Since all the bacteria are dead, I guess I need to get bacteria to seed the tank?