JRunyon21

Followed good directions. Add pure ammonia until ~5ppm. Add same amount each day and monitor until cycled. Ammonia part went great. It took 4 days for my aquarium to be able to take care of ammonia. After that the the nitrites just stayed the same all the time(~5ppm). This went on for 7 days. Got nervous because the nitrites were not moving and did a large water change(80%). Three hours later I tested and my nitrites were still 5ppm. I have let the aquarium be overnight. I am not sure what I will get when I go home today. Any suggestions for what I should do to get my nitrites down. I think my big problem was not reducing the ammonia I was adding when the tests started to read 0 Ammonia each day. I read somewhere that when that happened I should of cut the daily ammonia in half. Any suggestions?

Please help.

angelfish220

I would just keep adding the same amount of ammonia every day. To have nitrites you need broken down ammonia, and the same with nitrates. the Ammonia powers the whole cycle.

And also dont do water changes if you are doing a fishless cycle. It removes some of the ammonia that keeps the cycle going.

capekate

Hi JR
Fishless cycle takes time.. it can be 4-6 weeks if you are not using 'used' filter media. Angelfish is right.. do not do any more water changes. They are not necessary since you have no fish in the tank. Just let the cycle take its course to complete.