this is quite a fishless cycle!

[patagonia]

wow...day 5 of my fishless cycle...shrimp still in one piece and stinking...ammonia is 1-2ppm and i just tested the water and i have my first 0.25ppm nitrites!!!!! all i added from the cycled 5 gal tank was a handful of gravel and one fake plant...i guess it worked! as soon as i put them in 3 days ago all the cloudiness disappeared....i guess you can say i just used my very own home made bio spira!!! haha...this is unexpected though...im still researching about the fish id like to add to this tank...hahaha...im sooo happy!

 

[mattrox]

Congratulations. Hope it all continues to go smoothly.

 

[Meredith]

Hooray! Sounds like you are on the right track.

 

[TygGer]

Good job. In my experience, the longest transition is going to be converting nitrites to trates.

 

[patagonia]

oh tell me about it...it took 5 weeks for the nitrites to disappear when i was cycling my 5 gal tank...lots of time to do research though...

 

[patagonia]

update...
day 12......ammonia almost gone...nitrites 5ppm...and nitrates 5ppm...im almost there...

 

[TankGirl]

You can't trust the nitrate reading yet. Test kits measure NO3 by converting the sample back to NO2, so if there is already NO2 in the water the results will not be accurate.

Wait until NO2 is zero, then measure your NO3.

Good luck!

 

[Jchillin]

Agreed...most folks tend to think they are "almost there" once nitrates register on the tests. 0 NO2 and 20-40 NO3, done.

 

[patagonia]

i had the same thought as you guys...so i tested both tap and tank water at the same time for nitrates...tank is darker than tap...

 

[TygGer]

Tankgirl and jchillin are right. When I did my first fishless cycle, I measured for trates within about 2-2.5 weeks. My trites and trates didn't budge for another 2-3 weeks. I'd say it's safe when you detect 0 ammonia and trites. You really don't need to measure for trates as long as you do a large water change at teh end of the cycle.