Fishless Cycle.... sick of waiting

[sidsam]

Hey everyone...

I'm 6 weeks into a fishless cycle. I started dosing with 4ppm ammonia and within 2 weeks this began to drop, shortly after nitrites appeared and not long after nitrates appeared. 4 weeks later and nitrites are off the chart high, nitrates are about 40ppm. The nitrites have been off chart for a couple of weeks. I can now dose with 4ppm ammonia and it drops to 0ppm in less than 24 hours so that part of the cycle is well established.

I have been adding a small amount of ammonia everyday to feed the bacteria, is this the right thing to do? I thought the nitrites should be dropping by now.
Should I do a water change? Do I just need to be more patient, lol?

Oh... 10 gal tank I intend as a QT

thanks for any insight.
charlie

 

[Caliban07]

Did you know 1ppm ammonia equates to 2.7ppm nitrite? So if you calculate how many times you have dosed ammonia and how many times it has dropped you can calculate roughly what nitrite level to expect. You could be up into the 30ppm range or more. The test kit only reads up to 5ppm nitrite, couple this with the fact that nitrite bacteria a slow to get going it's no wonder they are taking so long to come down. No more ammonia until nitrites fall to 0ppm then one last dose of 4ppm ammonia.


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[ScotJudd]

Hi Sidsam,
As your tank is a fairly small tank I would personally water change enough to bring the nitrites into the readable area of the test chart and then dose ammonia to about 2ppm. The problem I had with leaving the nitrites overly high was that I had no idea if the bacteria was having any significant effect on the nitrites or not, apart from the increase in nitrates of course.
The nitrite to nitrate bacteria is indeed much slower to establish yet when cycling we present the filter with unnaturally high amounts of nitrite, no wonder it takes so long to drop to zero.
When the nitrites have fallen to zero then dose the tank to ammonia 4ppm and if ammonia and nitrites are zero in 24 hrs then you're cycled.
I personally WC to keep nitrates no higher than 100ppm during cycling, but that's just a personal choice.


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[sidsam]

Thanks guys for the replies...

I was not aware of the ammonia nitrite ratio so thanks for that Caliban07, interesting bit of information.

And thanks too, ScotJudd, I would have been waiting along time for the nitrites to come down, hey.

Ok so I drained the tank about 90% and got the readings down to where I could make some sense of them. I added a small amount of ammonia and it was processed fairly quickly, and nitrites appeared, about 2ppm. Haven't yet taken a reading today to see if they have been processed. Patience is key.

 

[Barliman]

Patience is key.

It is, indeed. I'm at about the same place you are and went through the same experience: too much ammonia too fast, sky-high nitrites, water change, wondering if I had screwed up.

The good thing is that you're on the right path: following the same advice you've gotten, I'm now at the point where ammonia and nitrite are zero or near-zero 24 hours dosing the tank with 2-4ppm of pure ammonia. If I get that tonight, for three-in-a-row, I think I can declare victory.

Patience, brother. You're almost there.