Fishless Cycling

[BrutusPleco]

I've been doing a fishless cycle on my 35 gal. tankfor approximately 3 weeks. The nitrates and nitites readings have been pretty low. I pretty much ignored the tank for the last few days (had out of town company). Checked the nitrates and nitrites tonight and . WOW!!! The nitrates are between 40 and 80. The nitrites are between 5 and 10!!! This is using the strip test. Also have the liquid ones which I will do tomorrow. I don't know what the next step to do has these numbers are so high. One fishless article said to keep adding ammonia, but that seems wrong since the nitrites are so heavy. Any help will be appreciated!! Thank you all

 

[TankGirl]

You need to add ammonia daily to feed the bacteria that you are growing, so keep on doing that. The ammonia is replacing what the fish would be producing daily if you had fish in there. You are now going to be watching those nitrites and see them slowly start to drop. You will find that even though you are adding ammonia every day, by the end of the day you won't read any ammonia at all on your test. This is good - and it is usually the longest phase of the cycle, so this is the time to be patient.

Good luck!

 

[BrutusPleco]

Thank you so much!! I have misplaced the piece of paper that I was writing the amount of ammonia I was adding, I think it was 3 teaspoons, Shouls I keep adding that? or less?

 

[Menagerie]

What is the ammonia reading now?

 

[BrutusPleco]

Nitrates 5.0 Liquid test

Nitites 5.0 Liquid test

Ammonia 0 Liquid test

I am confused as to the next step! I've been adding 3 teaspoons of ammonia daily. Thank you for your help!! I'm thinking I need to add more ammonia :? or the same amount?

 

[Menagerie]

Yes, continue to add the same amount of ammonia to keep the ammonia loving bacteria healthy while the nitrite bacteria continue to establish.