Fishless Cycle question

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Jsarita68

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Apr 30, 2015
Messages
70
Location
St. Petersburg, Fl
Back in June I started my fishless cycle for my new tank. I followed The (Almost) Complete Guide and FAQ To Fishless Cycling found on this forum. I have used that process two other times and have not had a problem but for some reason I have with this one. It began with my Nitrates rapidly rising and my PH crashing and the ammonia stopped going down. After a while I tried putting in some crushed coral and that seems to have helped but every other day, 24 hrs after dosing my tank to 4ppm ammonia I will have a .25ppm ammonia reading. It toggles between 0 and .25. I can't seem to get the tank to be free of ammonia more than 1 or 2 days in a row. The Nitrates are still rising very quickly like every 3 to 4 days they hit around 80 to 160 ppm. I have been doing a 50% water change when the Nitrates get that high so the PH doesn't crash and so when and if the tank ever fully cycles I won't have to do 2 or 3 water changes to get the Nitrates down below 20ppm for my fish. My tank specs are as follows:

Set up on 6/3/17
16 Gallon Widescreen not covered tank
Sand substrate
Heater Temp 83
Aqueon 30-Gallon QuietFlow Internal Filter
Airstone on full blast
Driftwood, lava rock
Plants: Java Fern- Microsorium Pteropus, Variety of Anubias, Water Fern Bolbitits Heudelotii
Lighting: TMC AquaBar LED Light Strip -11 Watts Output, 6500K White Samsung LED emitters. On for 4 hrs. a day.
PH - 7.8, Ammonia - .25, Nitrites- 0, Nitrates- 80 to 160

Thanks in advance!
~J
 
Are you using the api ammonia test? I've always had issues with it reading 0.25 instead of 0. If your tanks draining 4ppm of ammonia to nitrate in 24 hours I'd say your very close to the end of your cycle [emoji106]
 
Yes I have been using the API tests. I think it probably is done but how do I know for sure? I want to add at least four fish initially. Thanks, J
 
I'd stop adding ammonia and leave the tank for a week. Throw in a little bit of fish food over that week and test at the end of the week. If u have 0.25 ammonia 0 nitrite and some nitrate reading I'd say your good [emoji106]
 
Yep try and get it back to 20 or so. A 60% change should get u down around 20-40
 
After a fishless cycle you would typically do a 100% water change or close to it.

Ideally nitrates would drop to 0 as a starting place.
 
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