pepetj

Redoxx600: It's good to go fishless-cycling!

You must add Xdrops of Ammonia solution to reach 5ppm DAILY.
In a few days, you will see that ammonia readings drop to half, then to zero in 12hours.
At that point you start looking for nitrites, when nitrites spike (off charts) you add half Xdrops DAILY. Keep doing that and even it feels like forever, the nitrite spike will fade down; at that point nitrates begin to rise. Keep adding DAILY half Xdrops of ammonia until you read ammonia zero, nitrites zero, nitrates up (>40ppm); perform a total water change with treated tap water, and you are ready to go.

I have cycled all my tanks (3 are set, 4th in its seventh day -day 4 of nitrite spike, the filter of the 5th is getting seeded as I wait for the stand -painting it a different color)

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Redox600

That's interesting Pepe, that's not how I read the "Add and Wait" method from this thread:

Ammonia instructions for a fishless cycle

The way I under stood it was to add enough ammonia to get to 5ppm, then wait until it drops backs down to 0, then get the ammonia level back up to 4ppm and continue this cycle until the nitrites go off the chart. Eventually I will get enough bacteria that the ammonia will go from 4ppm back to 0 ppm in under 12 hours.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, it wouldn't be the first time!! :P

Redox600

Well its been 13 days since I added enough Ammonia to get to 5ppm, and I'm still only down to 1ppm of Ammonia, and 0ppm of nitrites. I have added live plants and raised the temp to 84 F to try and help the cycle. This is quite frustrating. GRRRR!
I am wondering what the heck I'm doing wrong?!?

I'm at the point where I think I may either:
a) Do as Pepe said earlier in this thread, and add ammonia daily,
or
b) Do a cycle with fish, which I don't want to do.

Anyone else ever have this issue with a fishless cycle?

Alessa

I had... until yesterday. My nitrites were off chart, my ammonia was 0, and there were no nitrates present, which was driving me crazy....

I tried something... (I read it online) i read that when there is too much concentration of a ceratin chemical compound (ammonia, nitrite) a lot of bacteria want to reproduce at once, and eat up most of the available oxygen so they end up dying and the cycle is stuck.

...so, my nitrites were off chart and I did a 50% water change. Then, the next day nitrates started rising.

it seems that when nitrite is off chart, it is harder to get out the spike.

Lucy

B shouldn't be an option at all.

Pepe's right about the ammonia method, I would follow his advice.

jdhef

Like Lucy said, I would follow Pepe's advice he is a master of tank cycling. Also, I don't think that 13 days is necessarily to long to be going without seeing nitrites. I cycled with Danios and it took about 20 days before I saw any nitrites.

But I do agree that when cycling, it's like time is measured in dog years or something. One day seems like 7 days cycling. But once your cycled and start adding fish you'll kinda forget how frustrating it was getting there.

Redox600

Ok folks, some progress!!

I finally have dropped my ammonia down to 0.25 ppm and my nitrates went up to 2 ppm. It took 23 days from me first putting in ammonia to get where it is, but it feels good!!

So as of today I have:
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 2ppm
Nitrate 5ppm

WOOOO!!!

Devon

Yay!! Celebrate!!

jdhef

You're probably half way there! It seems like it took forever for my nitrites to drop to zero, but it was really more like 18-22 days.

Hang in there!

Redox600

Update:
Ammonia now drops to zero in 24 hours from 5ppm.
My nitrites go immediately purple (API master test kit) indicating over 5ppm.
My nitrates are 10ppm.
I am happy.

Question: how much ammonia should I be adding now that nitrites are very high? Same as before (to get to 5ppm) or half that (to get to 2.5ppm)?

Lucy

Hey, you're getting there, good job!

If I'm not mistaken, you should be cutting in half.

It won't be long now.