Fishless Cycling .... Nearly There?

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mrvillicus

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After keeping fish for 3 years I gave it up for 6 months and by then Ive forgotton everything I learnt about cycling, well the complicated stuff anyway.

So I bought a 210l cleair tank last week and I have a fluval 3 and fluval 306 external running. The 306 had been dry for 2 months but the fluval 3 was running the day I collected it and was out of water for approx 2 hours max. Once I got the tank back I immediately filled it and turned everything on.

Since getting it home I have been dosing with ammonia, but I have only kept a log of a couple of days so far. From this collected info it seems the process is in full swing, I just wanted someone else to have a quick look just incase Ive forgotten something. Also so far, no water changes.

24/12 3ppm ammonia 20:15

Ammo 0.6
Nitrite 1.6
Nitrate 50

26/12 3ppm 09:50

Ammo 0.6
Nitrite 3.3
Nitrate 110

I know its hard to gain an idea from just two days, but from the increase in nitrite and nitrate in under 48 hours it seems to me something is happening, Ill keep dosing anyway until I see the lovely 0, but until then should I do a water change and test again?
 
No. You wont be cycled for a while. Now the bacteria for the nitrites needs to grow. Once you add 3ppm of ammonia and you hit 0 with that and nitrites in 24 hours, you are cycled.
 
But your nitrates ar super high, I woudn't do a water change until ammonia and nitrite get low enough that you wont disrupt the cycle (About .25ppm for each) because I would do about a 50% change.
 

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