130 Gallon build journal

[J1Time]

Did a 30% water change. Brought ammonia down. Nitrites and Nitrates stayed where they were.

 

[J1Time]

Tomorrow is day 14 of the cycle.

 

[J1Time]

Time to dose more ammonia?

 

[jwh0818]

Yes definitely!!!

 

[Rare]

I wouldnt dose. You still have ammonia and your nitrite are still high. Test tomorrow.....

 

[J1Time]

Nitrite being high should not matter if I dose or not correct?


I dosed a capful of ammonia though.

 

[Rare]

severum mama is correct on the high amount of dosing at the beginning. How much is a cap full? How much are you dosing & how are you measuring? The reason you dont want to keep dosing is that you made end up stalling your cycle since you still have very high nitrite.

Also, what are the direction of Dr.Tim bottle? I recall he only brings it up to 2ppm if i'm correct.

 

[J1Time]

Dr. Times was a waste of money. I saw no results from his potion. A cap ful of a large bottle of ammonia from ace.

 

[Rare]

Dr. Times was a waste of money. I saw no results from his potion. A cap ful of a large bottle of ammonia from ace.

If you didnt follow the direction how is it a waste of money. How much ml is a cap full?

 

[J1Time]

Followed them to the letter. Not sure. Not a lot. Maybe get me up to 2ppm

 

[Rare]

You follow to the letter but had already 4ppm+ of ammonia already in your aquarium?

I had ammonia up to 4ppm before adding dr Tim's. I tested this morning and still have no nitrites.

 

[Rare]

My point is that you might be over dosing and why it's where it is now. You cant say a cap full is x amount of you dont know how much you are adding.
Get a syringe to add the right amount.

 

[J1Time]

It worked fine. Added a cap waited an hour or so and tested. 3 caps got me to 4 to 5 ppm

 

[Rare]

So it wasnt 2ppm if you followed it to the t.

Anyways....Use a syringe to stop guesstimating what you are adding. Calculator

 

[Rare]

Just a heads up with both have the same tank and filter. I now use the eheim for extra water flow and to keep it around.

 

[J1Time]

Hear ya. Numbers from the pic seem about right for day 15 of cycle? I'd love to see a drop In nitrites

 

[severum mama]

Did you get some filter media? If you need some I can priority mail it to you and it should get there in a day since you live fairly close... I have a couple of canisters that haven't been opened in a few months... lol.

I think I already mentioned this but the thread is getting long so I don't wanna search for it. I don't think it's necessary to go up to 4 ppm, in fact I know it isn't necessary. 4 ppm became the "standard" for some reason on this forum when fishless cycling got popular (I've been on the board for over 9 years now, lol) and now it gets thrown around here a lot as a magic number to shoot for, when it's really just an arbitrary number. 4 ppm is a lot of ammonia. The only reason you would need to build up a biofilter to process that much ammonia is if you wanted to throw your entire stock list into the tank at once, which some people do, but IMO is NOT a good idea. New tanks can be unpredictable.

 

[J1Time]

I am keeping it in the 2ppm range now. Initial dose was at 4ppm

 

[J1Time]

This look right? Nitrites and ammonia dropping. Ammonia. It at 0. Nitrates rising. Need to dose more ammonia?

 

[jwh0818]

No wait for ammo and nitrites to disappear