Cycling Dilemna

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phocoena

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This is a fun one. I am cycling a small tank (14l)

Anyway in a bit of a cycle - water evaporates - top it off with dechlorinated water (adding ammonia as it is in the water and so is chloramine) anyway lid is on and it is still evaporating off quickly. So in a position with tank cycling both NitrIte and NitrAte are present, but the ammonia levels are high 8ppm.

So my dilemna is to treat this as an add daily cycle, since every time I top up I add a small amount of ammonia 0R to change the water and be back in the same position in 48 hours

This is while mum and I faff around waiting to get the proper materials to make a better lid.
 
From what I've read about fishless cycles, 8ppm of ammonia might be too high for even your ammonia eating bacteria...so you're probably not going to see nitrite anytime soon since the bacteria needed for that is getting and overdose of ammonia!

I'd say make a 50% water change without adding ammonia and see where that leads you... hopefully, under 4ppm...
 
Agreed. You want the ammonia to be around 4ppm for fishless cycles.
 
I had never actually added any alternate ammonia source (ie household ammonia), it ALL came from topping up with dechlorinated tank water (obviously water evaporating off quicker). I checked the level of ammonia in the TAP water after dechlorinating last night. With the levels of evaporation mixing with the tap water level at 2ppm. It was going to be hard to get a balancing act.
I forgot about cloning off my main tank when I posted this yesterday, which is what I am going to do when I get the evaporation issues sorted.
 

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