Ok, I will start this saying I’m not new to cycling a tank but I am new to fishless cycling. Also, I’m not new to keeping salt or freshwater tanks but haven’t in over 10 years.
Now, I’m 50 days in cycling a 70 gallon system. My method for cycling has been to add Fritz TurboStart 900 and to feed dr Tim’s ammonium chloride. I started it off by feeding 2ppm of ammonium chloride and cut back to roughly 1/2 that to keep ammonia up to 2ppm. Cycle progress was spot on but then seemed to flatten its progress. I read that high nitrates could cause a stall and I watched a symposium where dr tim said that there’s not much bacteria in the water column so I opted for a water change. I got nitrates from over 100ppm down to 10ppm and switched my feeding to raising ammonia to 2ppm and wait to see how long it would take to cycle out ammonia and nitrites to 0 before feeding again. Cycle sped up but now for the last 2 weeks I’ve consistently cycled both ammonia and nitrites to 0 in 45-48hrs but haven’t seen any progress toward cycling out 2ppm ammonia and nitrites in 24hrs. Also I’m back up over 100ppm of nitrates and I am testing nitrates after I see nitrites at 0ppm to not interfere with the nitrate test.
Is it overkill to get to 24hrs? Should I continue with another water change to lower nitrates and continue feeding of ammonium chloride? Or should I do my double 50% water change to lower nitrates and call it done?
Also, it will be fishless for another 80 days as I’ll be QTing everything but plan on using media that has been in the DT sump since day one for the QT and I want to make sure I have enough established bacteria when I pull it out to go in QT. (Nice run on!!)
Now, I’m 50 days in cycling a 70 gallon system. My method for cycling has been to add Fritz TurboStart 900 and to feed dr Tim’s ammonium chloride. I started it off by feeding 2ppm of ammonium chloride and cut back to roughly 1/2 that to keep ammonia up to 2ppm. Cycle progress was spot on but then seemed to flatten its progress. I read that high nitrates could cause a stall and I watched a symposium where dr tim said that there’s not much bacteria in the water column so I opted for a water change. I got nitrates from over 100ppm down to 10ppm and switched my feeding to raising ammonia to 2ppm and wait to see how long it would take to cycle out ammonia and nitrites to 0 before feeding again. Cycle sped up but now for the last 2 weeks I’ve consistently cycled both ammonia and nitrites to 0 in 45-48hrs but haven’t seen any progress toward cycling out 2ppm ammonia and nitrites in 24hrs. Also I’m back up over 100ppm of nitrates and I am testing nitrates after I see nitrites at 0ppm to not interfere with the nitrate test.
Is it overkill to get to 24hrs? Should I continue with another water change to lower nitrates and continue feeding of ammonium chloride? Or should I do my double 50% water change to lower nitrates and call it done?
Also, it will be fishless for another 80 days as I’ll be QTing everything but plan on using media that has been in the DT sump since day one for the QT and I want to make sure I have enough established bacteria when I pull it out to go in QT. (Nice run on!!)