Dr tims fishless cycle

[CAbercrombie]

Used dr tims amonia and one and only 2 weeks ago amonia is 0 but nitrites and nitrates are off the chart even after 2 water changes one 20% water change and one 40% water change 2 days ago. Both are dark purple and red with api test kits. What should I do. This is api test a few hours after 40% water change

 

[Screwgunner]

In my opinion once your nitrite go down to 0 I did a 100% water change. Now to do it the best way . Put all your rock In a big trash can if it is liverock you just put it in and add fish. Add your ammonia to the trash can with a heater and powerhead. I did it with raw shrimp in a mesh bag. Get your tank ready with fresh saltwater. When the nitrite drops to 0 take the rock out of the trash can and put it in your tank. You are putting live rock in your tank with bacteria on it . But no animals .

 

[B&CinB.C.]

Have some patience . When your ammonia starts processing your nitrites should spike . When your nitrites fall you should get nitrates . The presence of nitrites can skew the nitrate test. When your nitrites are near zero and you have nitrates redose ammonia to 2ppm and when it falls near zero in 24 hrs your cycle should be complete.
I'm not an expert but API test kits are not well liked on this forum

 

[Uncle99]

Rock, sand saltwater flow plus Tim’s and one week,,,, add your first fish and throw those tests in the trash.

 

[Matt Bravo]

Like others have said be patient, don’t do anything reckless and let everything get processed. We can’t give you a specific time frame since everyone’s tanks act different.

 

[Fish Fan]

Some thoughts that I hope will help here:

Cycling a tank using Dr. Tim's One and Only and his bottled ammonium chloride is a great way to cycle a tank, but can take as long as 3 weeks or so in some cases.

One of the reasons it can take that long is because there seems to be a disconnect between the instructions on the bottle of ammonium chloride, and the instructions posted on his website, if I remember correctly. If you follow one set on instructions, you get fairly high ammonia, which takes longer to go to zero, as well as subsequent higher nitrites, and eventually high nitrates.

Do you know how high the ammonia got at its peak?

As others have said, you cannot test accurately for nitrates when you have nitrites present, so don't worry about your nitrites at this point (or ever, frankly, it's unimportant in these tanks). Nitrite is non toxic in marine aquaria, and many here at R2R don't test for it or worry about it at all. Here's some info on that if you get bored:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nitrite-toxicity.402708/post-4805029
If you had ammonia spike to about 2.0 ppm or more, and then it is now (near) zero, and you're seeing "something" for nitrates, you can assume your cycle is proceeding appropriately.

You can test your system by adding enough ammonia chloride to get the ammonia concentration to ~2.0 ppm, then check again in 24 hours and if the ammonia is near zero, you're good No reason to wait for nitrites to come down to zero, you're safe to start slowly adding some hardy livestock.

API test kits don't get a lot of love here on R2R, but honestly they are fine for cycling a tank. There's some things to be aware of, like the ammonia can show ~0.25 ppm when it's likely nearly zero. None of our hobby level kits will give you laboratory level results, so use the API kits to track trends; ammonia went up, and is now down. Nitrates were zero and are now rising. Don't expect hard numbers with these test kits

I hope this helps and good luck!

 

[ReefQuestCorals]

Some thoughts that I hope will help here:

Cycling a tank using Dr. Tim's One and Only and his bottled ammonium chloride is a great way to cycle a tank, but can take as long as 3 weeks or so in some cases.

One of the reasons it can take that long is because there seems to be a disconnect between the instructions on the bottle of ammonium chloride, and the instructions posted on his website, if I remember correctly. If you follow one set on instructions, you get fairly high ammonia, which takes longer to go to zero, as well as subsequent higher nitrites, and eventually high nitrates.

Do you know how high the ammonia got at its peak?

As others have said, you cannot test accurately for nitrates when you have nitrites present, so don't worry about your nitrites at this point (or ever, frankly, it's unimportant in these tanks). Nitrite is non toxic in marine aquaria, and many here at R2R don't test for it or worry about it at all. Here's some info on that if you get bored:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nitrite-toxicity.402708/post-4805029
If you had ammonia spike to about 2.0 ppm or more, and then it is now (near) zero, and you're seeing "something" for nitrates, you can assume your cycle is proceeding appropriately.

You can test your system by adding enough ammonia chloride to get the ammonia concentration to ~2.0 ppm, then check again in 24 hours and if the ammonia is near zero, you're good No reason to wait for nitrites to come down to zero, you're safe to start slowly adding some hardy livestock.

API test kits don't get a lot of love here on R2R, but honestly they are fine for cycling a tank. There's some things to be aware of, like the ammonia can show ~0.25 ppm when it's likely nearly zero. None of our hobby level kits will give you laboratory level results, so use the API kits to track trends; ammonia went up, and is now down. Nitrates were zero and are now rising. Don't expect hard numbers with these test kits

I hope this helps and good luck!

I agree here and this is the route I used on my current system which seemed to be around that 3 week mark fish fan mentions to have a 100% fully cycled tank with nitrate showing around 20-25 ppm. Take your time and things will fall into place. Once ammonia is being consumed within a 24 hour period you are ready to put fish in after reading 0 ammonia again as stated above.

But you are not the only one to show high nitrates using this method. I would not worry so much though as you should see them reduce to a lower level over the next week or two.

 

[Fish Fan]

But you are not the only one to show high nitrates using this method. I would not worry so much though as you should see them reduce to a lower level over the next week or two.

I agree with this, and I think the reason people see such high nitrates with this method is because of the nitrites artificially inflating the results on a nitrate test, and because it's easy (though not really bad/harmful) to use so much of the ammonium chloride that the resulting nitrates is quite high, especially if you're "testing" the system with more ammonia, but not doing any water changes or any other method to bring down the nitrates.