Question About My Fishless Cycle (Add More Ammonia?)

[sistermoon]

Hi there,

I'm currently fishless cycling a 20g FW tank. I have read many, many things on how to do it and ultimately have been following the schedule here http/www.badmanstropicalfish.com/forum/index.php?topic=1023.0

The thing I'm worried about now is that I know I need to keep the ammonia eating bacteria alive and I'm already getting to zero ppms very early in the schedule listed above.

Here's a very abbreviated log of what I've been doing. My main question is whether I should be adding ammonia daily, every few days, at all?

Day 1 -
Filled tank, conditioned the water with StartZyme, added 3ml ammonia (pure, 10% ammonia in solution) and 1/4tsp BioZyme. Temp at 86 degrees (stayed that way throughout). Ammonia read about 5ppm.

Day 3 -
Ammonia just under 4ppm, added .5ml ammonia.
Added 1/8tsp BioZyme

Day 3 -
Ammonia under/around 4ppm, added .5ml ammonia.
Added 1/8 tsp BioZyme

Day 4 -
Added CaribSea Instant Aquarium Freshwater Substrate
Ammonia between 4-8ppm

Day 5 -
Ammonia between 2-4ppm, added 1ml ammonia.
Added 1/8tsp BioZyme

Day 6 -
Ammonia approx. 4-8ppm
Added 1/8 tsp BioZyme

Day 7 -
Ammonia approx. 4-8ppm
Added 1/8 tsp BioZyme

Day 8 -
Ammonia approx. 4-8ppm

Day 9 -
Ammonia approx 4ppm
Nitrites approx .25ppm
Added .25ml ammonia

Day 10 -
Ammonia approx 4-8 ppm
Nitrite greater than 5ppm (it's violet on the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Master test kit)

Day 11 -
Ammonia between 2-4ppm
Nitrites greater than 5ppm (violet again)

Day 12 -
Ammonia 0 - .25ppm
Nitrites greater than 5ppm (violet again)
Nitrates around 5ppm (first time testing for nitrates)
Added .25 ml ammonia

At this point I don't know whether I should stop and let the ammonia get to 0ppm and how long it should stay there before I add more.

Any advice?

Thanks much,
Sistermoon

 

[Warehouse]

Hello Sistermoon. When the Ammonia is down to 0 you should be redosing back to 3 to 4 ppm. Yours appears close enough to 0 to be re-dosing. You don't want to go as high as 5ppm until the Nitrites are coming down towards 0 in a 24 hour cycle. The reason for not dosing the Ammonia too high during this period is so that the Nitrites don't get ridiculously high as there's nothing to process them yet.

This write up is fantastic and well worth a read: Fishless Cycling do's and Dont's

 

[sistermoon]

Excellent..thanks for the advice. I'll check out the article!