Just so you do not make the mistake again, cycling with fish food is not a good way to go. You cannot control ammonia. There are inexpensive sources of ammonium chloride you can use for this purpose. Both Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride and Fishless Fuel from Fritz Aquatics will do the trick. The below is from Dr. Tim's Aquatics. He is the scientist who identified the bactieria we need in our tanks to handle ammonia and nitrite. He also sells the right bacteria to use to speed up cycling by weeks.
Using shrimp or fish food
One of the more popular fishless cycling methods is to buy a few dead shrimp at the grocery store, cut them up into chunks and add them to the aquarium. The shrimp decay, which produces ammonia to feed the nitrifying bacteria. There are a few drawbacks with this method, one being that the hobbyist really has no way to know how much ammonia is being produced by the decaying shrimp, and the aquarium does not look very good with dead shrimp laying on the bottom. Also, the organic material of the shrimp can cause bacteria blooms which turn the aquarium water cloudy. This method works but it takes time and patience and you will probably see a spike in ammonia and nitrite if you add a medium to heavy load of fish after the initial cycling. Note that some people use flake fish food instead of shrimp but this is not recommended because flake food does not have much organic material compared to shrimp and so does not add a lot of ammonia to the water, but you can use cut fish instead of shrimp. Hint: to speed up the decay of the shrimp/fish and produce more ammonia, add some DrTim’s Aquatics
Waste-Away sludge busting bacteria to the tank.
from
https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/fishless-cycling/
Changing water for nitrite is not the way to go. The reason is that the cycling process will produce nitrite for a number of days in a row. Unless you are almost continuously changing water, you will have some nitrite in the water. Once it enters a fish, it takes 24-48 hours to work its way out. As long as it is present in the water and there is no chloride. Every time a fish breathes it is taking in more nitrite.
And I wrote the article on rescuing a fishless cycle. I wrote the instructions for it so they are not hard to follow. I also realized that many people could not weigh the salt so the very end of the article tells you how to convert grams into teaspoons
Hint: We have calculated a handy conversion from grams to volume so one can measure in tea or table spoons which most folks are likely to have while a gram scale is not. The following calculations were made using an Ohaus triple beam scale: ¼ teaspoon of salt shaker sized table salt weighs 2 grams.
So, follow the directions to get the amount of table salt, (which is safe to use) and you can determine what you need in treaspoon sizes. If you do not have a set of measuring spoons in your kitchen most super markets have so many of these that they are selling them.
All of the math calculations ares basic and can be done on a calculator or with a paper and pencil/pen.
Here is how to covert the grams into teaspoons. since 2 reams of salt = 1/4 teaspoon, this also means 1 gram - 1/8 of a teaspoon.
So, dived the number of grams you calculated by 8. This will tell you how many teaspoons or partial teaspoons you will need to add.
If you read the section of ammonia, you need to know the pH and temperature of the water as well as how many ppm of ammonia you have. With all these numbers and not having salt in the tank, you can enter those numbers into the ammonia calculator linked in the article. The number you need to know is the one for
NH3 Concentration. As long as it is not above .05 ppm, your fish should be safe at that level for some time. You do not need to change water as this slows a cycle.
Also, the amount of salt required to block nitrite from entering a fish is minimal. It is way less than the amount we would use when it is a medication. So almost any fish can tolerate that level of salt for more time than it should take to finish a cycle.
Water changes slow a cycle and are only a last resort. By that I mean when they must be done because to protect the fish and the levels are above the danger line for ammonia and, for nitrite, zero is best or else having enough chloride in the water to prevent the nitrite from entering the blood stream of the fish via the gills.
I can also tell you that for the cycling articles on the site the danger levels I used are at lower levels than many fish need them to be . But, since I have no idea of what levels of ammonia or nitrite are going to be involved and I have no idea about the pH and temps involved. I chose to err on the side of safety.
When it comes to the amount of salt used, it is OK to use a bit too much safely. So if your amount of salt contains an eighth and your measuring spoon set dowsnt cont tain an 1/8 spoon, it is safe to estimate at what lloks to be one half of the 1/4 spoon. Sets usally contain a 1/4, 1/2 and 1 teaspoon and then a tanblespoon one. Just anf FYI, 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons.
Finally, if you are having problems figuring out the Nitrite shoot me a message on the site. Click on my name under my Icon and then choose "Start A Conversation" And I will help you with it.
