New 125 litre tank fishless cycle. Any advice and sanity appreciated!!

[Driftwoods]

Ok, So confession number One: Before I started this hobby I was pretty sure I had some amazing patience but it turns out I actually have none

So now that's out of the way it's time to introduce myself. I'm Claire aka Driftwoods. I've always loved fish and for some reason decided this was the year to buy my first aquarium I so far have spent many a fond evening reading up on pretty much everything in existence about the hobby and fish.

The tank we decided to go for was the Fluval Roma 125 and a Oase 350 Biomaster Thermo. I've decided that I am doing to do a fishless cycle with ammonia.

My tank history so far: I bought and set up the tank with a lovely piece of driftwood and a few little round caves along with some relatively coarse sand. All was very well washed and put into the tank. I also decided on a nice background which I stuck on with postergel. Filter was then installed, tank filled with water, added dechlorinator and got the filter started. WAHOOO! .... or was it?

Confession number 2: So or I ordered a bottle of Ammonia only to find out that it had surfactant in it so I promptly ordered another which was pure. Both arrived on the same day but like a complete twit I started using the one with surfactants. Hence I had to strip the whole tank down and wash everything really well.

So... second attempt!! I set everything up again and this time used the pure Ammonia. I also managed to get hold of some seed material from the local aquarium shop. WAHOO!.....This time for real!

So if you are still with me after this epicly long post these are my stats so far tested using API kit:

Day 1: Ammonia dosed to 4. Nitrite 0
Day 2: Ammonia 2, Nitrite 0.25 (No ammonia added)
Day 3: Ammonia 2, Nitrite 0.25 (No ammonia added)
Day 4: No change (No ammonia added)
Day 5: No change (No ammonia added)
Day 5: No change (No ammonia added)
Day 6: No change (No ammonia added)
Day 7: No change (No ammonia added)
Day 8: No change (No ammonia added)

So I'm going to keep posting my results here and any help and advice anyone can give to keep me sane along the way and help me speed up the process as much as possible would be very much appreciated.

 

[coralbandit]

I would dose the amount of ammonia ,or 1/2 of what you used to get 4ppm everyday until nitrites showed [day 2] then would have either cut dose in half or used same dose everyother day until ammonia goes to zero.
There as many ways and versions of fishless cycle as fish it seems..
This is the method I was taught and most thought to be the quickest.
IMO if the seeded media takes you could be good any time ?
Have you test for nitrAtes yet ?

 

[Driftwoods]

So far I have been following ecos method for fishless cycle but you are right there seem to be dozens of iterations.

So I've done some testing today and drum roll!........ no change

I've taken your advice and dosed up to 4 again so here's hoping that this may get some kind of reason from the tank.

I'm so tempted to think it may not be far off with the filter material but I just don't have that much luck.

By the way the filter material I was given appears to have had a lot of fish skin on it as I keep seeing it get into my tank. I'm guessing that's not too odd?

 

[Driftwoods]

By the way on the Nitrates - mine is currently sat at about 10ppm still. I was expecting this as this is the level which my water naturally contains. When I'm cycled I'm going to put a few plants in to try and help a bit.

 

[Driftwoods]

So I just wanted to give you a quick update on my tank. Thank you for the advice coralbandit because it does seem like I've got some movement!

I dosed back up to 4 yesterday and my ammonia dropped to 2 today and my Nitrite has increased slightly. We are closer to 0.5 now rather than 0.25.

It's so exciting.