Cycling with Cycle

[imcgary]

I have never used Cycle before.

I have a 125 cichlid tank. I have used "instant Cycle" products before mainly Bio Spira (when it was still bio-spira needed to be refrigerated) and had great success with them.

This is my first time using Cycle and my ammonia spiked like expected but has remained around 1ppm. the nitrite remains at 0 but nitrate is up to 10ppm? is it normal for Nitrite to never go up when using cycle?

 

[daniel2509]

I have never used Cycle before.

I have a 125 cichlid tank. I have used "instant Cycle" products before mainly Bio Spira (when it was still bio-spira needed to be refrigerated) and had great success with them.

This is my first time using Cycle and my ammonia spiked like expected but has remained around 1ppm. the nitrite remains at 0 but nitrate is up to 10ppm? is it normal for Nitrite to never go up when using cycle?

I don't know about Cycle but it looks like my TSS case when I overdose it to my 10g. 2 bottles straight at once, and the ammo stayed at 1ppm, nitrite 0 and nitrate 20. Today, my ammo dropped to 0.50, still 0 nitrite but 40 ppm nitrate. It's so weird but i'm glad that it's just my 3rd day and really high nitrate, lol

 

[gilpi]

You can't beat a "natural" cycle. I personally have learned the hard way many years ago when I first started in the hobby that the additives just don't work.
If you want to speed up your cycle, see if you can get a small piece of filter media from an established tank and mix it in your filter.