I think I dosed too much amonia for my cycle...now what?

O

ouiouigirl

AC Members
May 21, 2006
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Fort Lee, NJ
Hi,
I have been doing a fishless cycle for about 11 days now and used the mardel strips to measure the stuff, thinking I was at 5ppm all along. When I got worried the nitrites weren't moving at all, I did some search on various posts and was informed that the aquarium phamarceutical tests are much better. I made that purchase today and again the nitrites are at o but my amonia is way pass the 5ppm more like 8 ppm actually. what should I do? Keep on waiting for amonia to dissipate and nitrites to start climbing? or should I do a small water change to reduce the amonia?
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
thank you.
 
small water change if you want to and leave it untill it drops i would say...
 
Do water changes until you are done to 5 ppm. Keeping it at 8 will just stall the cycle...see Roan's post from earlier today in another thread.
 
You should be able to continue your cycle routine. It should be back on track.
 
if the ammonia is too high, simply nothing will happen with the cycle. i did the same thing when i started my 10g tank. the bacteria just won't do anything. the bacteria are already present in your water, so even if the high ammonia killed all the bacteria in your water before, doing the water change added back what small ammount of the bacteria can be found in your normal tap water. 4ppm should be just fine. it may take a couple weeks for nitrites to start showing up. dont add anymore ammonia until the ammonia you already have starts to drop, then keep it around 2-3ppm. when you can add ammonia to 3ppm and it reaches 0ppm in 24 hours, and your nitrItes are 0 in the same space of time, then do a large water change to remove all the nitrAtes and add fish.

also, you may want to do an occasional water change during the cycle to keep the nitrItes and nitrAtes from going off the chart otherwise it can stall your cycle again.
 
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