Hi,
I'm currently in the middle of a fishless cycle and not sure how best to proceed.
I set the tank of up two weeks ago but my ammonia only arrived last weekend. I originally dosed the ammonia up too high for the first few days (8ppm) but then did a water change on Monday and have been dosing ammonia to around 4ppm ever since.
This has all been fine and now I'm at the point of having really high nitirites (api test show very luminous bright purple colour) and the nitrates have been also very high although not off the scale. I would say around 80ppm but I find it quite hard to read. The nitrates though have stayed the same for several days now and other than the ammonia dropping everything else seems to stay the same, high nitrites and same nitrates.
I'm not sure whether I should just be patient and wait for everything to eventually drop or whether I should do a PWC. I did change the water about 50% a couple of days ago so dont really want to do that again but will if need be.
I'm just not sure if my cycle has stalled or whether I am being impatient.
PH has remained steady at around 7.6-7.8
Any advice would be great.
I'm currently in the middle of a fishless cycle and not sure how best to proceed.
I set the tank of up two weeks ago but my ammonia only arrived last weekend. I originally dosed the ammonia up too high for the first few days (8ppm) but then did a water change on Monday and have been dosing ammonia to around 4ppm ever since.
This has all been fine and now I'm at the point of having really high nitirites (api test show very luminous bright purple colour) and the nitrates have been also very high although not off the scale. I would say around 80ppm but I find it quite hard to read. The nitrates though have stayed the same for several days now and other than the ammonia dropping everything else seems to stay the same, high nitrites and same nitrates.
I'm not sure whether I should just be patient and wait for everything to eventually drop or whether I should do a PWC. I did change the water about 50% a couple of days ago so dont really want to do that again but will if need be.
I'm just not sure if my cycle has stalled or whether I am being impatient.
PH has remained steady at around 7.6-7.8
Any advice would be great.