When Cycle Is Ready? 24hrs Or 12 Hrs?

[sufcdan]

I am adding ammonia each night, do i need ammonia and nitrite reading to equal 0 by the morning (eg 12 hours) or the following night (24 hours)

In 12 hours i am still getting a small nitrite reading, in 24 it is reading 0

So when or what do i do?

Thanks

 

[redevilman]

I am adding ammonia each night, do i need ammonia and nitrite reading to equal 0 by the morning (eg 12 hours) or the following night (24 hours)

In 12 hours i am still getting a small nitrite reading, in 24 it is reading 0

So when or what do i do?

Thanks

The way i have been cycling my tank is adding ammonia to get a reading of 5ppm at 9pm then twelve hours later at 9am i test it i pretty much stuck to that routine and my tank was cycled in abot 28 days if i remember.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Only add ammonia once every 24hrs. So if you add at 11pm, then your next due to add ammonia at 11pm the following day.

Test after 12hrs though, so if you add ammonia at 11pm, then at 11am the following day you should test the water. When ammonia and nitrite are both consistently reading 0 after 12 hrs then your cycle is done.

at this point you should keep adding ammonia for 1 week, if it's still testing out right after the 12 hrs then do a massive water change and add fish.

 

[waterdrop]

The fishless cycle can stay at this stage (still a little nitrite left) for a very long time for some people.

To repeat what MW just said but in different words: Once you are finally seeing zero readings for both ammonia and nitrite (at the 12-hour mark after adding ammonia) then you can tell yourself that the cycle is completed and start your 1-week of verification. It should continue to drop both to zero within the 12 hours for whole week. Only then should you schedule the big water change-out followed by fish (no more ammonia adds because now the fish will be doing if for you!)

~~waterdrop~~