Confused! Fishless Cycle!

[Noobiefishy]

Hi there

Well, I'm on week 3 of my fishless cycle. This is my first tank, and feeling a bit confused now!

I've been doing the "add and wait" method. I've tested tank water this morning with following results:

Ammonia - either 0 or 1.25 ppm I couldnt decide which one!
Nitrate - either 0 or 5ppm - again, couldnt make my mind up!
Nitrite - 1ppm
PH - 7.2

So, what happens now? I'm feeling rather lost and not sure what to do next! Do I add more ammonia to bring it back up to 4ppm now?

Someone help me! lol

Thanks in advance!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Yup, with the add and wait method you add the ammonia to start off with, wait for the levels to drop down to 0, when it has then you top it back up to 5ppm. Then start testing ammonia every day and when it gets back down to 0 you top it back up. Just keep doing this until the ammonia is needing to be topped up once a day, then give us a shout again and we'll tell you what should be happening and what to do!

Keep a log of your results every day as this makes it a lot easier for us to work out what's going on.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the site NoobieFishy. Miss Wiggle is one of our best at this stuff so I'm sure she is steering you right. My questionis what test kit you are using. I just looked at the color cards for mine and am sure that between 0 and 1.25 ammonia, I would be certain if it was the first time I had ever done a test. The colors are just that different. The 0 and 5 nitrate are fairly close and could be a hard call to make.
It looks like you may be starting to develop the ammonia processing bacteria by your nitrite levels but may not have many nitrite processing ones developed yet. It sounds about right for 3 weeks or so into the process so keep up the ammonia additions and you will get there. Meanwhile, it is a good time to start looking around and deciding what to put into the tank when it is cycled.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with MW and OM47, sounds about right for week three of a pretty good fishless cycle. Don't forget to be recording pH in your daily logbook lines as well as ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate doesn't really need to be done every time as its a more time-consuming test and we are not as concerned about those results on a daily basis really.

~~waterdrop~~