Ammonia level during fishless cycling

[Morbius]

Hello all, My tank has been running since Aug 26th....added the right amount of ammonia to get a 3.0mg/l reading.Have been checking ammonia level every other day,and all was well. But to day when i got home from work I checked ammonia level and it has fallen below 1.5.....(it's more like 0.25-50mg/l.I used a full dropper of 12 ml for the intial dose of ammonia....so should I use the same amount now or just add until i get 1.5? If bacteria is growing, I dont want to "kill it " by adding too much ammonia!

 

[Mgamer20o0]

just keep adding until 1 or 1.5. when it hits zero in 24 hours it should by cycled.

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

Ideally, ammonia levels should not exceed 3ppm, so adding daily ammonia to get a reading of 2-3 ppm would give you the maximum number of bacteria for your cycling filter.

It seems rather early in the cycle to be seeing ammonia drop and nitrites taking over, but it might be a good idea to start testing for Nitrites now, to see where you really are in the cycle.