I have had a light stock of fish in my new tank since Jan 1st (yes, 46 days) and have NOT seen nitrites yet.
I averaged a 20% water change almost every day for the first month regardless of the ammonia readings. They never reached over .25. Now looking back I think many times it may have only been a trace of ammonia (it was actually hard for me to distinguish if the api test read all yellow, or partly green...then i started testing my tap water next to it). I read that water changes WOULD NOT slow the cycle so I figured it could only be a good thing.
Over the last week and a half I have changed my strategy, still monitoring closely but have made maybe 3 pwc of 20% - almost hoping for the ammonia to be high so that I can get the cycle over with and add some darn fish! It still hasn't gotten close to .5 And still no nitrites. I thought nitrites were supposed to come shortly after adding fish, some things I have read say around THREE DAYS after!!
1)Should I let my ammonia get higher before I make pwc changes? Like above .25, but less than .5?
2)Should I vacuum up waste in the gravel during the cycle?? Or since I do this could it be slowing it down by sucking up bacteria and its food? (I thought this was proper maintenance)
3)If it has taken this long and I havent seen nitrites, how long could the cycle completion take?
It seems to me that this is the whole problem/point that fishless cycling advocates are trying to make, and maybe I am just slow....but basically the fish HAVE to go through some toxic levels during the process, no matter how much you care and want to do the perfectly humane thing. It might be worth mentioning to newcomers - so much of the advice out there talks about changing water,changing water,monitoring levels, changing water -- when the reality is it means "letting" your tank cycle.
What does everyone think?
I averaged a 20% water change almost every day for the first month regardless of the ammonia readings. They never reached over .25. Now looking back I think many times it may have only been a trace of ammonia (it was actually hard for me to distinguish if the api test read all yellow, or partly green...then i started testing my tap water next to it). I read that water changes WOULD NOT slow the cycle so I figured it could only be a good thing.
Over the last week and a half I have changed my strategy, still monitoring closely but have made maybe 3 pwc of 20% - almost hoping for the ammonia to be high so that I can get the cycle over with and add some darn fish! It still hasn't gotten close to .5 And still no nitrites. I thought nitrites were supposed to come shortly after adding fish, some things I have read say around THREE DAYS after!!
1)Should I let my ammonia get higher before I make pwc changes? Like above .25, but less than .5?
2)Should I vacuum up waste in the gravel during the cycle?? Or since I do this could it be slowing it down by sucking up bacteria and its food? (I thought this was proper maintenance)
3)If it has taken this long and I havent seen nitrites, how long could the cycle completion take?
It seems to me that this is the whole problem/point that fishless cycling advocates are trying to make, and maybe I am just slow....but basically the fish HAVE to go through some toxic levels during the process, no matter how much you care and want to do the perfectly humane thing. It might be worth mentioning to newcomers - so much of the advice out there talks about changing water,changing water,monitoring levels, changing water -- when the reality is it means "letting" your tank cycle.
What does everyone think?