Cycle question

[Sillyfishies]

I'm doing a fishin cycle (didn't know about fish less cycle! I wish I would've done it tho!) my ammo is sitting happy at .5. Do I need to put in more fish for the cycle to start? It's been 14 days?

 

[Sillyfishies]

I was told to not get anymore fish until the cycles over which if at day 14 nothing happening then will the cycle end?

 

[CrimsonBlayde]

Please don't add more fish. Are you testing for nitrites? Or nitrates? Those parameters will help determine what is happening with your cycle.

Cycling takes longer tan 14 days. Be patient and keep the ammonia low enough to not harm your fish.

 

[Sillyfishies]

I tasted all here's results
Ammo .5 ppm
NitrIte 0 ppm
NitrAte 0 ppm

I heard most of the cycle is nitrIte to nitrAte. Which if average is one month and it's been half a month with no drop I feel like something's stalling.

 

[Miss.Jo]

Definitely do not add more fish. Are you doing a lot of partial water changes? You should, even at .5 the ammonia is stressing the fish, and if they're not hardy fish they could get sick very quickly.

The more fish you add, the higher the ammonia will be because of the excess fish waste, and your media (filter, bacteria etc.) is not strong/mature enough to withstand combating it at only 14 days. You're looking at a minimum of a month in my experience for a stable environment/cycled tank, with or without fish mixed in with the cycling process. But keep in mind, with such a young tank, you're going to have ammonia spikes every time you add a new guy until your filter media is strong, even after the tank is "originally" cycled

check that ammonia often, do daily partial water changes, because it can spike in an instant and you could have sick critters in no time

 

[Sillyfishies]

I have extremely hardy fish and I'm wondering if it's bad I haven't seen nitrItes and when should I?

 

[Miss.Jo]

It's hard to say really, but again, this is just my experience, I have not seen a nitrite spike until at least 2 weeks into the cycling process, how often do you test your water? It could also be possible that you missed the spike. Regardless, it's too early to be tooooo concerned, I'd just test often and expect it to happen very shortly if it has not

 

[Sillyfishies]

Every 5 to 6 days which I could've missed it. My test hasn't come in yet so I have to convince my parents to take me to the store

 

[Miss.Jo]

All I can really tell you is that until your ammonia starts dropping on it's own, that is when you test for nitrites, but this is done with fishless cycling which is what I prefer but I know it's too late for that with you, and you need to keep the ammonia down with water changes rather than just monitoring it because you have little critters in there, so again all I can say is test it as often as you can, it will eventually happen

 

[CrimsonBlayde]

Don't panic about the lack of nitrites. I would expect to see them soon. You didn't miss them...if you had there would be nitrates showing up.

 

[Sillyfishies]

Thanks for all your help