New Tank - First Water Change

[Its Hutch]

In the middle of my first fishless cycle after watching @Irene (Girl talks fish) youtube videos. Ammonia at 0 and gets back to 0 24 hours after dosing up to 2ppm of ammonia. Nitrites were a little high and nitrates were at almost 80 ppm. Decided to do a 50% water change and continue waiting for nitrites to get to 0. Should I continue adding ammonia every few days? Any other advice besides giving the tank time? Also do you think itd be a good idea to add a few nerite snails to clean up some of the dying leaves on the new plants?

 

75g tank with an Aquaclear 110 and a large COOP sponge filter. Lightly planted right now as I wait to buy more plants from the COOP.

[devind0446]

I always like to keep adding fish food (my source of ammonia) all the way until there is enough bacteria that there is no ammonia or nitrite and only tons of nitrate. I then do one giant water change to get all the nitrate out before adding fish. Your plants will help with the process too as you probably know.

I also love nerite snails so I would totally add them for plant/algae/food/poop clean up.

Edited December 8, 2020 by devind0446

[Daniel]

These questions are always difficult because no two tanks and two no cycles are ever the same. It like when you cook a recipe the first time and it turns out great, but then using the same ingredients and following the same recipe it comes out differently the second time.

Cycling like this doesn't even use the same ingredients each time. The water is different, the mix of bacteria is different, the process varies from person to person. I could go on, but basically this is a dark art and know one really knows what is happening. 

Any completely random next step you take is probably as good as any other at this point.

[Maggie]

I dosed my tank daily to 2ppm until nitrites also fell to zero, then daily again (and water changes) until the day before fish went in. It can take a while. I have never had a single positive reading of ammonia or nitrite since then.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Maggie
clarity