Quick Cycling Question

[Kelsyann]

So I'm in the process of cycling a 30 gallon tank for female Bettas. I've cycled once before, but I didn't do it quite right so I'm just making sure all is well. I'm using an API freshwater master test kit. Its been going for about a week and the first few days I used fish flakes because I couldn't find pure ammonia. On wednesday I switched over to the pure ammonia. Ammonia levels went up to 8.0 that night, and today they're at around .25. I tested for nitriIte and that was all the way up on the chart at 5.0 ppm. NitrAtes are at about 10 ppm. When the ammonia goes down does that mean the cycle is over? Or should I keep adding ammonia to see how long it takes the filter to process it out?


Thanks guys!

 

[waterdrop]

Next milestone will be when nitrite(NO2) stops being at the top of the chart and instead begins dropping to zero like ammonia. Ironically, sometimes when this happens then sometimes the ammonia dropping stops performing as well as it did before! But then the next thing to do is to -time- how long the drops are taking.

When you can dose ammonia to 5ppm and then your filter drops ammonia to zero ppm and nitrite(NO2) to zero ppm both in 12 hours or less then you've made it and can start your "qualifying week" where you just watch it do this for the better part of a week to ensure you haven't been fooled. If it passes its qual-week then you can do the big water change and stock with first fish.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Slyspy]

So I'm in the process of cycling a 30 gallon tank for female Bettas. I've cycled once before, but I didn't do it quite right so I'm just making sure all is well. I'm using an API freshwater master test kit. Its been going for about a week and the first few days I used fish flakes because I couldn't find pure ammonia. On wednesday I switched over to the pure ammonia. Ammonia levels went up to 8.0 that night, and today they're at around .25. I tested for nitriIte and that was all the way up on the chart at 5.0 ppm. NitrAtes are at about 10 ppm. When the ammonia goes down does that mean the cycle is over? Or should I keep adding ammonia to see how long it takes the filter to process it out?


Thanks guys!

The method I have used: Add ammonia to 4ppm. Wait for the level to start dropping, then dose daily to top it up to 4ppm. When the daily dose is consumed within 24 hours then halve the dose (ie look to add ammonia to 2ppm) while waiting for the nitrItes to drop to zero. The cycle is complete when your daily dose of ammonia is consumed in 24 hours without a trace of nitrIte. Keep dosing the ammonia until you are ready to add fish. Do a massive water change to get rid of the nitrAtes before stocking. This method took 35 days with my new 180l tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, considering it finished at the 24hour drops is pretty widespread. Many cycles that go well will do fine with this. For MW, myself and some of the others following a lot of cases here in the beginner section it just became troublesome that a significant percentage of cases would have relapse problems, mini-cycles showing up after people thought they were fishless cycled and so we got kind of intense about trying to define a number of "finalization" procedures to acheive higher percentages of success.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Kelsyann]

Okay, thanks guys, I'll keep checking those nitrItes!