Cycling issues, I'm confused

[A4Ryan]

I'm doing it fishless by adding ammonia. The guide I used said to raise it to about 4ppm to 5ppm. I got it up to 4ppm a few days ago (when I started). The guide said to add that amount everyday.
I test the water twice daily and noticed that the ammonia levels are not dropping.
I started 4 days ago and haven't added any ammonia since and I'm still at 4ppm. I know that it could be a while before I see any nitrites, but shouldn't the ammonia level be dropping over time? I'm afraid to add more ammonia thinking that I'll end up with too much.

 

[Purrbox]

You just need to add enough Ammonia to bring the levels back up to 4-5ppm. If your Ammonia isn't dropping yet, then you don't need to dose more yet. Getting the Ammonia to start dropping is the longest part of the process in my experiance. Once it starts dropping and you start seeing Nitrites you are in the home stretch.

At only 4 days in, you've just started your cycle and I wouldn't expect to see a change for another week or so. Until you see a change in numbers testing once a day is more than enough. To speed things up you can bump your temp up to the lower to mid 80's and beg, borrow, steal some filter media from an established healthy aquarium.

 

[A4Ryan]

You just need to add enough Ammonia to bring the levels back up to 4-5ppm. If your Ammonia isn't dropping yet, then you don't need to dose more yet. Getting the Ammonia to start dropping is the longest part of the process in my experiance. Once it starts dropping and you start seeing Nitrites you are in the home stretch.

Thats where my confusion was. It's at 4ppm, but I had not expected it to take so long to start to drop. The guide I was using said to add in the same amount daily, which is apparently wrong.
Thanks for the answer though!

 

[Alaris]

You want to dose with ammonia to keep it at about 4ppm. If it's already 4ppm, then you don't need to dose that day. My tank took a week before the ammonia started to drop and I even had nitrItes I got from seed gravel.

Cycling can take a very long time (4-8 weeks).

 

[neilanh]

Just like they said. Patience is the key to fishless cycling. It takes a while to get things going, but it works out better in the end for everything.