This is what I did. I checked ammonia daily, and if less than 2, bump it back up to 2. Also check nitrites. Will take a couple weeks for ammonia to go to 0 in less than 24 hrs. Keep doing the same with the nitrite, bumping back up to 2ppm daily, til it goes to 0 in 24 hours. Also, keep close tabs on your
ph. I noticed in my fishless cycle, when the nitrites finally dropped, so did my
ph, below 6.0. One way to help this is when your nitrites have been up for a week, do a small
pwc every other day before adding the ammonia to bump it up to 2ppm. This will help keep the
ph more stable. The reason I believe this happens is the cycle is an acidic process, which will lower your
ph. For mine, it dropped like a rock. Doesn't even need to be a 20% or 30%, even just 10% will help maintain a buffer for the
ph. When I did that, my
ph stayed pretty stable and within a couple days, I was cycled. Now I did use media from an already cycled tank, so mine went a bit faster. Hope all goes well for you.
