Fishless Cycling, Started Off With High Ammonia!? :/

[JoelHoare]

Hi guys, hope someone can help me. I've been running a fishless tank with plants in for around 3-4 weeks until I could afford testing kit etc to start my fishless cycle. So I followed the pinned guide on this forum and calculated the correct amount of ammonia to add. I think I should have tested beforehand however as I soon realized my ammonia level was over 8ppm. Maybe I already had some ammonia in there? Produced by the rapidly breeding snails? I'm not sure. So I did a 25%water change, still same ammonia. Then I did a further 50% water change and just tested it to find it's still really high at around 6-8ppm! Should I just keep changing water until I get it down to 3ppm?
 
On a side note, my sand has been getting dirty very quickly. Is this because the snails produce so much waste? (brown speckly bits and dirty looking patches of sand) I have been using a syphon to get rid of this dirt when doing the water changes...
 
p.s - I removed a piece of wood that seemed to be the snails choice of egg laying area!

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

If you have snails, then there is no point in doing a fishless cycle, as snails are your ammonia source. Keep doing changes until ammonia is about .50 ppm. How did you get these snails? Did they come on the plants? 

Also, to get rid of them you can put a peice of lettuce in a jar and change it every 1-2 hours, dumping the snails out. 

 

[JoelHoare]

I believe they must have come on the plants yes. I'm not quite sure what you mean... So I should currently get the ammonia to 0.5 with water changes, and then do a fish-in cycle? Sorry if i'm completely missing the point!

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

If you cant get rid of the snails, yes.
 
But, if you have a bunch of time you can let all the plants soak in tap water for 30 mins or so, and rinse the sand/gravel in tap water, as well as all the dechlor.
 
If you dont then just keep doing the lettuce in jar and take it out when full.
 
Do a fish in cycle using the snails and no other stock, so then you have no chance of killing the final stock.

 

[JoelHoare]

Thanks for your help I think I'll have to go with a "snail-in cycle". Do just daily water changes to keep the ammonia at 0.5? Or is there more to it? I was so set that it was gonna be a fish-less cycle that I don't know where to start with fish (or snail) in cycle. When will it be safe to add other livestock? 

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

You just do changes as often as needed to keep it at 0.5 and nitrites as low as possible.
 
It will be safe when the ammonia and nitrites are 0 for a few days, and add lightly. This may take a few months. 

 

[TallTree01]

If you like your snails then you want to keep ammonia as low as possible and do a ' snail- in ' cycle. If you're going to kill them later anyway, get your ammonia down to about 3ppm and then proceed with fishless cycle.

 

[daizeUK]

I agree with TallTree, except that if you want to proceed with a fishless cycle I would dump out 100% of your water and start again from scratch, calculating the amount of ammonia correctly to bring it up to 3ppm.

 

[JoelHoare]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've tested the water today and found Ammonia is down to 5ppm which is progress. Also, i'm showing some nitrites! (0.25ppm) which I'm hoping means some bacteria is consuming the ammonia? I also tested Nitrate which was showing around 2.5ppm. I just did a 40% water change to bring that ammonia down a bit more and I assume I should just keep doing a daily 20% water change? What results do I need to see in these levels before I could start adding fish?
 
I guess now i'm in a snail-in cycle I should start with some hardier varieties. Any suggestions for first fish/school? I love the look of the small cories!