Oreganoodle Posted December 27, 2021 Share Posted December 27, 2021 I started a fishless cycle a few weeks ago. I used one of the bottled bacteria, and saw ammonia ->nitrite but not nitrite->nitrate. Over the past couple of weeks I have bought a different brand bottle and two more of the same brand bottle. I've been daily adding up to 1 ppm of ammonia and watching it disappear; and finally the other day saw nitrites down to 0. Wahoo. So I brought the tank up to 4 ppm of ammonia to test if it was cycled -- but that was a week ago and the tank still hasn't handled it. It is down to somewhere between .5 and 1 ppm. Nitrites are at 0. Nitrates are between 80 and 160. Should I still just wait, or is the ammonia not decreasing rapidly at this point a sign that I've gone backwards? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gideyon Posted December 28, 2021 Share Posted December 28, 2021 You likely didn't have enough to handle the 4ppm. Just wait it out. From personal experience, the longest wait is for nitrites to nitrates. But that's without bottled bacteria. I don't know how effective those are. I've used it myself on my first tank with no problems. But it was just one fish in a 10 gallon. It wasn't much of a test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail Kali Posted December 28, 2021 Share Posted December 28, 2021 How warm is your tank? I’m starting too and noticed that when the temperature got over 75 degrees it really helped the beneficial bacteria and finally got the nitrates going. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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