First fishless cycle

[Mcgolg76]

Doing my first fishless cycle in a 5g tank. Couldnt find pure ammonia so using raw shrimp. Kind of confused by my readings. Ammonia at zero even though I have the raw shrimp and even some fish food in there. Nitrites are super high. Like bright purple. Nitrates are also super high almost a red color. Shouldn't the nitrites be going down since I have such high nitrates. Should I water change now. Only been 2 1/2 weeks.

 

[flitabout]

Has the ammo always been 0, or did it go up and then drop? It sorta sounds like what happened to me when I added bb in a bottle to speed up my cycle. If you did than that would account for the odd readings. If you did, then a water change probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Super high nitrate may stall or stop a cycle. The nitrite to nitrate bacteria takes the longest to develope the amounts needed.

 

[Mcgolg76]

Didn't use and bacteria boost. Put some gravel and decorations from cycled aquarium

 

[Liberty2k4]

I'm a newbie here but have been doing a TON of research on fishless cycling and it sounds like everything is going as it should. Your ammonia is being converted to nitrite which is why you have 0. The nitrites are also being converted into nitrate but that bacteria takes a little while longer to build up which is why you still have nitrite readings. I'm guessing those will zero out soon as well. If your pH starts dropping then you need a water change. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong