I've been cycling my 8 gallon tank for 35 days. How are my numbers?

[chrono1081]

Hi guys,

I've been cycling two tanks for 35 days. The living room tank is an 8 gallon and the bathroom tank is a 1 gallon quarantine tank.

Do my numbers look OK? Is there anything I should do? (Water change (I've never done one), etc). I've been following along with the fishless cycle FAQ but since my numbers don't seem to follow what it suggests I figured I'd ask here.

 

[librarygirl]

For the larger tank, you're starting to see nitrite and nitrate so that's good'; I'd like to see ammonia dropping faster though. Since you havent' done any water changes yet it might be a good idea to do a 100% water change (with dechlorinator) to restore the buffers and minerals in the water. Since the tank is fairly small you could only dose the ammonia to 2 instead of 4; that might help things move a bit faster.

The QT tank looks good, ammonia seems like it's starting to drop faster, nitrites are high, not sure where the nitrates went lol I'd do a large water change on this one too; after the water change, wait 30 minutes then test nitrIte. If it's still unreadable on the chart (5+) keep doing water changes and testing until you can get nitrites down to something you can read; they've been high for quite a while now and it could be stalling things. Then dose ammonia to 1-2 (for such a small tank dosing to 4 is overkill).

 

[chrono1081]

Thanks! I'll do a water change and only dose to 2ppm