Fishless Cycle: When To Add More Ammonia

[Autonerd]

I'm on my way! I'm doing a fishless (formerly fish-in) cycle, added ammonia to 4 ppm on 12/30 (sorry, non-Yanks, 30/12), and on Jan 2 some of the bacteria-in-a-bottle the LFS sold me. Yesterday (Jan 3) ammonia was between 1 and 2 ppm; today it's at 0.5. My API nitrite test went purple in the bottom of the tube, although after 5 mins it seemed to indicate 2.0, it did not go green as the Fishless Cycle doc said it might. Nitrates are at 40.

So nice to see some different colors in the test tube!

Question: Should I re-add ammonia to 4ppm now, or should I wait until it drops to 0? Any need to change water?

Aaron

 

[Cossie1111]

Wait till it gets to zero

 

[CezzaXV]

Yup, wait til it gets to 0.

My nitrites were off the scale high for a very long portion of my cycle, but I never saw it go green. I wonder if they've changed the tests or something.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

i advise adding it it 0.25ppm i only say that beacuse the API can be fussy on the colours of 0.25 and of course the allowed error for the home hobby kit

 

[Autonerd]

In case anyone's curious, I was at 0 ppm this morning! Yay! I added just 2 ml of ammonia and it jumped to between 4 and 8, so I'm wondering if my ammonia is more concentrated than I realized. Not sure if I should do some tests in my test-bucket, change water and lower the level to 4, or just leave it and let the bacteria do their thing. Opinions, please?

Oh, and thanks once again for everyone's help!

Aaron

 

[Autonerd]

I added just 2 ml of ammonia and it jumped to between 4 and 8, so I'm wondering if my ammonia is more concentrated than I realized.

Scratch that...after letting it mix a bit, I think it's closer to 2. Or maybe 4. Hard to tell those darker shades of green apart in the test tube.

Aaron