Fishless cycle..am I on the right track?

[shirlz]

OOPS yes..definately meant nitrItes!
Today's results: Ammonia 0 .. Nitrites 5ppm!! Woohoo! So.. could this be the Nitrite spike? Hope so. Have just put a tiny bit of ammonia in to feed the bacteria. Hope thats the right thing to do too!

 

[southpaw]

Yes.....You will want to continue adding ammonia to keep it in the 4-5ppm range until nitrites have finished spiking and you then see your nitrate spike... When it gets to a point to where you can dose ammonia to 4-5ppm and wait 24hrs and test and results come out to 0 ammonia , 0 nitrite and probably a high nitrate reading your cycle will be done.

 

[BoredAgain]

When it gets to a point to where you can dose ammonia to 4-5ppm and wait 24hrs and test and results come out to 0 ammonia , 0 nitrite and probably a high nitrate reading your cycle will be done.

Then you will want to fully stock your tank right away.

 

[chunkoblue]

What kind of test kit are you using? A 50% water change should reduce the ammonia by 50%??

The API ammonia kit color chart only goes up to 8.0 ppm (assuming that is the kit being used) so I'm guessing that maybe the actual ammonia level was much higher than 8 ppm which is why the 50% change still reads the same color. Keep up with the water changes until you bring it down to around 4 ppm.