Another cycling question-showing ammonia, nitrate and nitrites…

[Darquid]

Started up a 15 gallon tank last week and doses ammonia (dr Tim’s) to 2ppm. I added fritz turbo start 2 days later. I checked the levels the next day and ammonia was still around 1.

Yesterday, ammonia and nitrite were both zero ppm and nitrate was maybe .5 ppm (hard to tell). So I dosed ammonia to 1ppm.

My readings today show a bit of everything and I’m really not sure where to go. Let it ride for a day and then dose ammonia again depending? Partial water change to reduce nitrates?

I have no plants in yet and I used Caribsea ecocomplete for my substrate.

[Aiken Drum]

Test daily. If ammonia is below 1ppm then redose it back up to 2ppm. When you are able to dose ammonia to 2ppm and 24 hours later your ammonia and nitrite are both zero you are cycled sufficiently to moderately stock your tank.

Dont bother testing for nitrate until you are cycled. The nitrate test detects both nitrite and nitrate. So while there is nitrite in the water your nitrate test will give a false positive.

[Darquid]

Awesome-thanks for the quick reply! So no need for a water change, just keep dosing ammonia for now. Thank you!!

[Aiken Drum]

If your nitrite gets so high your test cant read the test properly, then i would change water to lower the nitrite to detectable level before redosing ammonia.

[Darquid]

Here’s todays after I dosed to 2 ppm ammonia yesterday…nitrite seems a little high but not sure if it’s off the charts yet. Thinking of dosing ammonia to 2 again and seeing how it works tomorrow. Worst case I do a water change then…

[Aiken Drum]

You are a little more than 1 week into what could easily be a couple of months to cycle a tank.

Just follow the process of testing every day, and dosing to 2ppm whenever ammonia drops below 1ppm. Be aware that every 1ppm ammonia goes to 2.7ppm nitrite, so during that stage when ammonia is being cycled but nitrite isnt, nitrite can build up quite quickly. The nitrite to nitrate stage normally takes longer to establish than the ammonia to nitrite stage.