help with tank cycling

[nighthawk723]

I'm currently fishless cycling my 65 gallon tank and it's been 3 weeks. I dosed pure ammonia a week ago and it has been steady at 4ppm and hasn't gone down. It's currently at 4 ppm with nitrite at .50 and nitrate at 10 ppm. What is my next step? Tank has about 30% plants and a couple of snails. Running heater at 80 degrees with filter and power head on 24/7. Substrate is sand. I've been also dosing python step 2 liquid bacteria

 

[Colin_T]

You don't want fish or snails in the tank if you are adding ammonia because it will kill them if the pH is above 7.0.

Don't bother testing for nitrate until the ammonia and nitrite have both gone up and come back down to 0. Most nitrate test kits read nitrite as well as nitrate and give you a false reading.

Make sure you have plenty of aeration/ surface turbulence and then wait until the ammonia level drops and the nitrite start to go up.

 

[nighthawk723]

thanks