Fishless Cycle PROGRESS!!!

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Bl414

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I'm not entirely sure what day of my cycle its on, but ive finally got progress.
After almost 3 weeks of waiting my ammonia finally went from a almost constant 4.0 to 0.25 over night. IM SO EXCITED :D

Its my first time cycling a tank, its only a 10 gallon, but after it drops to zero how much do you think i should put into it to boost it back up
 
I'm on the tail end of cycling my 10g tank, and was putting approximately 0.5ml of pure ammonia in the tank to re-dose it. My guess is, you are using the same method of liquid ammonia dosing that I was, so that should probably work for you.

Someone had posted a site that had a calculator that would estimate how much ammonia you could put in your tank based on tank size. I can't find it anymore, but maybe someone will have it at their fingertips and post it here?
 
james-yeah im probably just behind you in the process, any idea when the nitrite/trate is supposed to do its thing?

daileene- nope, i just test it every day to check the levels. I've only dosed it once when i had first put the ammonia in.
 
Bl414 said:
james-yeah im probably just behind you in the process, any idea when the nitrite/trate is supposed to do its thing?

It took my tank over two weeks from the point that ammonia started converting to nitrItes to see the nitrIte levels convert into nitrAtes.
 
Bl414 said:
I'm not entirely sure what day of my cycle its on, but ive finally got progress.
After almost 3 weeks of waiting my ammonia finally went from a almost constant 4.0 to 0.25 over night. IM SO EXCITED :D

Its my first time cycling a tank, its only a 10 gallon, but after it drops to zero how much do you think i should put into it to boost it back up

Hopefully this link can answer all your questions- http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html
 
I'm not entirely sure what day of my cycle its on, but ive finally got progress.
After almost 3 weeks of waiting my ammonia finally went from a almost constant 4.0 to 0.25 over night. IM SO EXCITED :D

Its my first time cycling a tank, its only a 10 gallon, but after it drops to zero how much do you think i should put into it to boost it back up
I found it depends on how much if any ammonia is in your tap water and the concentration of ammonia in the bottle you use.
I used a 2 gallon bucket and added ammonia to that first. I used a syringe that has ml markings. Test the bucket water and apply the math to your tank water volume.
For me 1 ml of ammonia gave 4 ppm per 2 gallons of water.
 
james- bleh takes soo long, wish it would go faster :p

eco- yes it did, thank you very much :)

j2- ah alrite, I just put a tsp of pure ammonia back into the tank and it raised it to like 3ppm I think.

kat- I haven't even tried, I just got back from petsmart and got the api master kit. Only had the ammonia one before because I was being cheap haha
 
alrite so, test results

ph- 7.4
ammonia- almost 0, just added more a minute ago
nitrite- is off the charts, dark dark dark purple
nitrate- 0
 
like 20%?

*edit*
did a 40% change, but not sure how long to wait before testing again.
 
did another 30% water change today, tested again. nitrites are still really high
 
If they're still really high, I'd do another PWC. Maybe try to aim to get your nitrItes to around 2.0 ppm.

One other thing you could try is rinsing your filter media in the removed tank water during your PWC. I could be wrong, but it seemed like rinsing the filter media kickstarted the bio-filter a bit.

Remember, rinse it in tank water, NOT untreated tap water, or you'll kill the bacteria.
 
alrite, did a 50% water change earlier and dosed the ammonia back up. came home and tested water and its still above 5.0ppm nitrite
 
One more 50% change should do it for you then.

Sometimes I feel like you need to do almost as many water changes fishless cycling as you do with a fish-in cycle, LOL. But at least with a fishless cycle no fish are being harmed.
 
That's true, I'm running out of conditioner though. Didn't think I'd be doing this many water changes haha. I usually buy stuff as I need it
 
Keep dosing the ammonia as well, until you add fish. Your 2/3 of the way there! Nitrates are on the way! Just follow the advice you've been given, and I strongly suggest you use eco's link or the link in my signature. It will help you a lot.
 
Okey dokes! :D

updated tests:

pH - 7.4
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate -0

tank converts 4ppm of ammonia in a day
did a 50% change last night at like 2am and now my nitrites went from 5ppm to 0
 
Bl414 said:
Okey dokes! :D

updated tests:

pH - 7.4
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate -0

tank converts 4ppm of ammonia in a day
did a 50% change last night at like 2am and now my nitrites went from 5ppm to 0

Your nitrAte numbers seem odd to me. Typically, when you cycle a tank, the final results are:

0 ppm ammonia
0 ppm nitrItes
10+ ppm nitrAtes

You may want to retest your nitrAtes to make sure you at least havea small amount of them. I'm assuming you're using a liquid test kit rather than inaccurate test strips?
 
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