Checking On Cycle

[Trev_Miester]

Well it's day 25 of my fish-less cycle in my 75 gal. Three days ago there was still nothing changing as far as the levels go. Today everything is moving like crazy. I did my first redose of ammonia back to 2-4 ppm.

Just want to make sure everything seems alright to the pros here. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Using the dosing calculator for ammonia you can not dose to 2-4 ppm. You can dose to a specific ppm. So your reporting you dosed it back up to 2-4 ppm sends up a red flag for me, I wonder what you may really be doing without knowing it.
 
My guess is you likely overdosed the ammonia at the start and that worked against you and caused everything to go slow. In most tanks ammonia is dropping in a matter of days and certainly within 2 weeks. Bear in mind that ammonia out gasses over time, so this alone should cause readings to drop over time.
 
My read based on your report is in 24 days you did absolutely nothing, added nothing to the tank. All you did was dose some amount of ammonia into the tank which you are not certain as to how much. You have not reported the tank temp., the KH (which holds pH up) or any readings for your tap water. this makes it hard to know exactly what may be going on.
 
Did you read the cycling article here? http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/421488-cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first

 

[Trev_Miester]

I believe I might have been a little vague in my fist post. Apology.

When I first dosed the tank, I put in exactly 10 ml of 10% ammonia. Which by the calculator would come out to about 3.5 ppm in 75 gallons of water. Take away some water from substrate and decor displacement and it was a little higher than that. So my starting point was around 4 ppm. Can't know exactly by the water color.

I re dosed 7.5 ml to add another ~2.6 ppm. Based on knowing I probably had a little bit of ammonia still in the water from the first dose I would buses my ppm now is around 3-4. Again, not 100% on the exact ppm number because the water rest color can only tell so much.

Now, as far as the level change goes, it has definitely been a very slow process. The ammonia had lightened up over the past three weeks(slightly) into the 2ppm range. However, within the next tree days of testing, it significantly dropped. Maybe I was just excited to finally see the drop.

With that said, I did read the cycling article. Pretty much every day lol

Water temp is 78
Haven't checked ph because it initially was sky high and everything I read said that higher ph is actually beneficial to the cycle. I will be checking that again on my next testing day.

Apologize again for the vague information.

Thanks again for any advice.

Trevor