Where am I in my cycle

[civprod]

I know that fishless cycles are an exercise in patience, so I don't mind waiting, but I would like to try to determine how much longer I am going to be waiting.

I bought and filled the tank on February 23. The baseline readings on our tap water are 0 ppm across the board.

On February 23, I added ammonia to bring it up to 5 ppm as suggested in the sticky. Since then I have not had to add any more ammonia to it and have not added anything else.

As of today, 3 weeks later, the readings are just between 1 and 2 ppm for the ammonia, about 2 ppm for the nitrite, and about 40 ppm for the nitrate.

If it matters, the aquarium is a 55 gallon aquarium.

[Rbishop]

I would bump the ammonia to 3 ppm.

What is your temp?

[civprod]

The temperature is about 78 degrees.

[Rbishop]

Liquid test kit like the by API?

[civprod]

Yes, it is the big API test kit

[Rbishop]

You are probably in the middleor just past. Dose back to 3 ppm ammonia and test 24 hrs later with new readings.

[Danyal]

you're about near the end, you've got both species of bacteria present now you just need to wait for them to increase in population significant enough to process the remaining ammonia and nitrites.

[civprod]

I didn't add the ammonia yesterday as my girlfriend had moved my ammonia and I didn't figure out where it was until today. Here are my current readings today:

Ammonia: about .5 ppm
Nitrite: about 1 ppm
Nitrate: about 40 ppm

I am going to add ammonia right now, but I am a little worried about adding too much. Would that slow down the cycle very much?

[Mgamer20o0]

no wont slow it down..... having too little and the others start dieing might. go back up to 3ppm and once it drops to 0 after 24 hours you should be cycled. i like to wait until the nitrites drop too though.