Fishless cycle - Where Do I Go From Here?

GreekGills
  • #1
Beginner here. First cycle. On day 18 of a fishless cycle in a 29gal. Using stability and prime. Dosing Dr Tims ammonia. Using API master test kit.

Today's test results...
Temp- 84f
pH- 7.5
Amm- .25
NitrIte- 5ppm
NitrAte- between 0-5ppm

I have just recently seen nitrites the past few days and they're going through the roof. Took about a week for ammonia to drop from 4ppm to today's .25 reading. Nitrates have been as high as 40ppm (6 days ago) and slowly declined to today's 2/3ppm reading.

My question is do I dose ammonia today? I started on day 1 dosing ammonia to only 2ppm and dosed more ammonia on day 10 to bring it to 4ppm. Should I bring it back up to
4ppm?
Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated
 
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Kyleena696
  • #2
Do you have live plants? Did you do a water change? I'm just trying to figure out why your nitrates dropped.
Sorry I'm not much help with the ammonia dosing.
 
GreekGills
  • Thread Starter
  • #3
No live plants, I just did a top off with a gallon of primed water a couple days ago.
 
GreekGills
  • Thread Starter
  • #4
I had dosed stability and ammonia(up to 2ppm) during the first few days and got nitrates on day 4(5ppm). I then got some 'fluval cycle' and started dosing that, rookie move trying to rush it. I just wanted to see if this miracle cycle starter would work (3-day dosing). I couldn't find anyone that has experience with this brand. Anyone use this?
I saw an increase in nitrates on day 3 of dosing fluval(day 7 overall) up to 7ppm. Ammonia was down to 1ppm. At this point, my temp was up to 80f, since I learned that cranking the heat can help bb. I also added coral to raise my pH.

Day 10, I dosed ammonia up to 4ppm when I learned I started my ammonia level too low from the start. For a few days ammonia was stuck at 4 but nitrates climbed to 40ppm. Temp is up to 84f at this point.

Day 14, ammonia down to 2 but nitrates falling. I decided to abandon the fluval altogether and start dosing stability. Couple days go by and get a huge spike in nitrites, first sign of those, and a small bump in nitrates to 20ppm. Ammonia down to 1ppm. That was 2 days ago. Ammonia and nitrates are very low today but nitrites still sky high...any guesses on what I should do now?
 
Kyleena696
  • #5
I used nutrafin cycle originally (now have stability) and it took around 40 days for my tank to cycle completely. I also needed to add a second filter for it to finish completely. I did a fish in cycle with daily testing, water changes when needed and prime dosing. Since I have no experience with dosing ammonia my only advice is wait it out.
 

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