Bio-spira-fishless cycle

[ozark06]

I am in the process of cycling my 10gal tank fishless. I started on 2/12/07 with the 5 drops of pure ammonia per day. As of today 4/3 I have Ammonia 4 ppm and 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates per my AP testing kit. I have ordered bio-spira. When I get it and add it to the tank I plan to keep testing the tank as I have been doing and wait until the ammonia and nitrites are 0 and I get some nitrate reading. Does this sound like a good plan? I will keep putting in drops of ammonia, say 3 drops a day to keep the bio-spira bacteria fed. I will not add my fish until the bio-spira gets a handle on the ammonia in the tank.
Over a few days or a week after adding the bio-spira, should I see the ammonia levels going down and some nitrites appear and then disappear and finally nitrates appear? Kind of a quick cycle? That is what I expect to see.
I just got tired of waiting for the tank to cycle. I know it can take awhile but I never got a nitrite reading at all. So I hope the bio-spira will kick start things. Any advice or corrections to my plan would be appreciated.

 

[AnnaEA]

I haven't used bio-spira, so I can't speak to it directly, but the plan sounds good to me.

Something else to try is increasing the amount of ammonia you add for a day or two -- I fishless cycled my 10 gallon tank with ammonia, and what I did when I got two frustrated with the slowness of it was give it heft dose of ammonia for two days -- I think it was two or three full droppersful each of those two days. Then I started getting readable nitrite levels, and I dropped it back down to the recommended drops until the ammonia and nitrites zeroed out and I was getting nitrate readings -- it only took about another three days.

I think fishless cycling with drops of ammonia is slow because the bacteria aren't getting a hyper rich environment to feed in, and that that couple day boost gives them the hyper rich environment and fuels a growth spurt, so to speak.

 

[Butterfly]

I would definitely give the BioSpira time to catch up before putting the fish in. It is meant to go into the tank when it's new and fish put in immediately after thus the bacteria multiplies as the fish supply ammonia to feed it. But since you already have ammonia it will need time to catch up.
As Anna said fishless cycling is a little slower but it is much safer for your fish.
Carol

 

[ozark06]

I received the bio-spira today. I will go with my plan. Thanks for the replies. I'll report back the results.