Fishless Cycle No Change After 2.5 Weeks

[coolfishguy12]

Here is the progress graphically. It got kind weird after the water change but here it is. The drop in nitrates is when I did the change. After that I dosed ammo to 1ppm everyday because it kept going to zero overnight. The nitrites are posted at 10ppm because they were ff the charts (which is why they are shown not to have reduced after the water change). You can see today the nitrites reduced while the nitrates kept rising. 

 

[daizeUK]

lf nitrites get too high off the scale, then an API kit will get totally confused and give a false zero reading.  Be careful of this.  I think it may be more likely that your kit is unable to read the nitrite levels at all any more than all those nitrites have suddenly converted to zero overnight.
 
To check if this has happened you can do a diluted water test.  Take 1ml of tank water and mix it with 9ml of distilled or deionised water.  Then use 5ml of this solution as usual to test for nitrites.  If you get a reading on your API kit then multiply it by 10 to give the true nitrite reading.

 

[coolfishguy12]

lf nitrites get too high off the scale, then an API kit will get totally confused and give a false zero reading.  Be careful of this.  I think it may be more likely that your kit is unable to read the nitrite levels at all any more than all those nitrites have suddenly converted to zero overnight.
 
To check if this has happened you can do a diluted water test.  Take 1ml of tank water and mix it with 9ml of distilled or deionised water.  Then use 5ml of this solution as usual to test for nitrites.  If you get a reading on your API kit then multiply it by 10 to give the true nitrite reading.

 
Forgot about that, I remember reading this about the test kits before.
 
I tested three different combos this morning:
 
1mL tank water + 4mL distilled = 0ppm nitrite
2.5mL tank water + 2.5mL distilled = 0ppm nitrite (slightly darker blue compared to above)
5mL tank water + 0mL distilled = 0-0.25ppm (just a hint of purple)
 
Thanks for the suggestion there's a million things to remember ahahahah

 

[coolfishguy12]

I think I did it folks. The 3ppm of ammonia I put I the tank around this time has turned into nitrates. Just to be sure, I put another 3ppm in again tonight, if that disappears tomorrow night, I'll do a big water change and finally make a trip to the LFS to get fish.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I think I did it folks. The 3ppm of ammonia I put I the tank around this time has turned into nitrates. Just to be sure, I put another 3ppm in again tonight, if that disappears tomorrow night, I'll do a big water change and finally make a trip to the LFS to get fish.

 
 
Congrats!!!  

 

[coolfishguy12]

Just finished putting my first fish in the tank. Thanks to everyone for following along. The total length of the cycle was about 6 weeks. Here are a few things I learned along the way for anyone who stumbled upon this that might be looking to fishless cycle a tank.
 
The biggest take away for me is the importance of seeding material. My tank basically sat without change for 3.5 weeks, then I put a piece of filter from my LFS in the tank and things started immediately. 
 
I personally saw no change after using two bacteria in a bottle brands (Dr. Tim's, and Nutrifin Cycle). This is not to say the products aren't effective, they just didn't work in my case. 
 
I used Old Country brand ammonia available at Home Hardware for those Canadians out there who can’t get ahold of the standard Ace Brand Janitorial Strength Ammonia. Old Country Ammonia costed ~$3 for a huge bottle, I called the company and they confirmed it to be a 5% solution with no detergents or surfactants.
 
Although a lot of guides trail off and make it sound like things are over when nitrates start to appear, I found things to be the opposite. As with dosing the proper amount of ammonia, I found it also important to “dose” the amount of nitrites. Other guides make it sound like you can just maintain off the chart nitrites while building your nitrIte-to-nitrAte colony, but this just stalled the cycle for me. Once you can turn a significant amount of ammonia into nitrite overnight, you have to do a big water change to keep them in readable ranges in order to slowly build the nitrite-to-nitrAte colony.
 
Thanks for following along!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

To add to the final post, the guide we offer here takes into consideration the issue with nitrite building up too much.  And this can lead to a faster cycling period over adding daily full doses of ammonia.  Instead we recommend adding only a 'snack' dose of ammonia every 3 or 4 days after the first two doses, as this keeps the nitrite levels lower while also keeping the ammonia bacteria contented.
 
Find our recommended method for cycling here: TFF Fishless Cycling Guide

 

[coolfishguy12]

To add to the final post, the guide we offer here takes into consideration the issue with nitrite building up too much.  And this can lead to a faster cycling period over adding daily full doses of ammonia.  Instead we recommend adding only a 'snack' dose of ammonia every 3 or 4 days after the first two doses, as this keeps the nitrite levels lower while also keeping the ammonia bacteria contented.
 
Find our recommended method for cycling here: TFF Fishless Cycling Guide

 
Oops, I was talking in generalities sorry! 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

 

To add to the final post, the guide we offer here takes into consideration the issue with nitrite building up too much.  And this can lead to a faster cycling period over adding daily full doses of ammonia.  Instead we recommend adding only a 'snack' dose of ammonia every 3 or 4 days after the first two doses, as this keeps the nitrite levels lower while also keeping the ammonia bacteria contented.
 
Find our recommended method for cycling here: TFF Fishless Cycling Guide

 
Oops, I was talking in generalities sorry! 
 

 
 
No worries.  Just trying to offer as much help to the next new fishkeeper to wonder along.  Generalities are good, specifics directions to avoid pitfalls is best.    That's why we created our guide to fishless cycling.  We've been helping folks cycle their tanks for quite some time, and this guide is the best we've been able to find/create.