Quick Fishless Cycle Question???

[Love_MyFish]

Ive been doing a fishless cycle going on two week. I have been un able to find Ammonia, I have beem to Ace, Pleasents, walmart, lowes, ect... Richmond VA doesnt have it so I am using shrimp. I dosed up to 4ppm using 2 medium shrimp it dropped to 1ppm, nitrItes through the roof, and 20 ppm of nitrAtes (seeded tank from my other aquarium). I cant seem to get my ammonia to get up to 4ppm again, Im using 5 medium shrimp and I cant beet the biological filter. when should I see a NA spike and when will the NI drop???

 

[Randi]

I've never used shrimp to cycle so I'm not sure about raising your ammonia. In my experience the nitrite spike lasts about twice as long as the ammonia spike. If your nitrites are so high that they can't be measured by the test kit a PWC should help get the process going.

 

[Hubert90]

Hmm u should try using just Fish food. And the spikes of nitrite and nitrate is not very predictable. When I was cycling my tank. I didn't have any nitrite and nitrate until the 3 week. And it the cycle was complete very soon after.

 

[BldrArch]

Are you saying your nitrItes spiked after dosing ammonia up to 4ppm and then your ammonia fell...isn't that a good thing?

During my cycle, my nitrItes were always reaaaaly high. So high I couldn't measure them. But my ammonia kept dropping to 0 every time I dosed it up. As a PP suggested, I did a lot of 50% PWC to get my nirtrItes to a readable level. My nitrAtes stood around 20ppm the whole entire time. But I have a few live plants so I'm not sure if that made a differnece. I gave it a couple weeks and sure enough, it all started balancing to 0 while my trAtes jumped to about 40. I do think my cycle stalled at some point and did a PWC and added some ground up fish food to add some nutrients back to the water as the FAQ in my siggie suggested. I think it worked.

Anyways. I didn't do a cycle with the shrimp so I'm sorry I can't give you specific help.

That's wierd your Ace didn't have any ammonia. My ace is in a po-dunk town and they still had it.