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Nope, Ive let my qt go for almost a week with no ammonia & have never had an issue keeping it cycled. And, Ive helped people before that had cycled tanks that went for over a month with zero ammonia & their bb recovered within a few days to a week. Now, we are not going to let them go for this long though! Lets see how things go!
no problem and Thanks for the quick responses....I'm glad I found this forum and all the experts to help me through this cycle, although I have to admit, it is a long time to look at an empty aquarium when you want to put some fish in it...hopefully this comes to an end shortly...3 weeks so far and counting...see ya tomorrow with the water test results
Ok....JLK looking good now....I'm guessing redose the ammonia back up now??? What level??? Or do we do another water change to get nitrates down??? Let me know....
Lets stick to 2ppm for now until we see those nitrites have readable drops. They are dropping some because your nitrates are increasing but we dont have the means to test this when they reach high levels.
Nitrate - 80 - 160 (darker red than the 80 but not the maroon of 160)
Ok JLK so 3ppm ammonia disappeared in 24 Hrs and there were no nitrites either!!!! That is good right???? I'm guessing we dose the ammonia up to 4ppm today and we are getting really close to the cycle's completion. Please advise when you get a chance.....
Yeah my wife and son are dying to get some fish. It's been almost a month since we started this fish less cycle. We have decided on getting a school of Denison barbs, probably between 7-10 of them and then we're going to build our tank around them.
Ok so the good news we were able to take 4ppm ammonia and zero it out in 24hrs as well as having 0 nitrites. And the nitrates are sky high...
Bad news is looks like I am experiencing a pH crash as it's down to 7 and it has never been less than 7.4-7.6. Always read 7.6 on ph test and 7.4 on high ph test. So JLK what's the next step???? I'm thinking a 100% water change to get those nitrates down......let me know ASAP thanks