quick question about first cycle.

[FLEET]

Well into the cycling process. Ammonia is almost back to 0, Nitrite is 3.0, and nitrate 8.0. My question is do I do a partial water change now to lower the Nitrate level, or let ammonia and Nitrite come back to 0 first then do the water change?

Thanks

[thegrun]

I would just wait, your close to the end and I don't see any advantage to the WC now.

[hanas]

I agree, once your nitrite and ammonia read zero, then do the WC to drop your nitrate. What did you cycle with?

[sponger0]

I just lt it run until everything is 0 then do a waterchange and then get a small CUC.

[coralsnaked]

Never water change during the cycle. it just makes it last longer. once you see 0 amm and nitrites and a sig drop in the trates do a 20% water change and use a quality live bacteria suppliment like SmartStart Complete to boost nitrifying bacteria

Merry Skerry

[FLEET]

Got it no water changes. And for answer your question I started by adding pure ammonia to my tank. No stinky shrimp and no torturing fish....seemed like the way to go .

Thanks again for all your help.

[hollister]

The fact it will be zero means cycles over. Could be 2 weeks could be 4 but i would wait atleast 4 weeks but do a water change whene it hits zero. Only 10 % and then 10% per month as long as readings are low.

I would not add any cuc. Very little for them to eat. I would start with a fish or coral then wait a week or 2 then add a fish or coral then wait and add a fish or coral and a couple CUC. Its about balance.

But with so many fish and coral to choose from why rush anyway.

[blanden.adam]

Your nitrates aren't even high yet. When I cycled my tank (ammonium chloride dosing up to 5ppm every time the tank hit 1ppm), my nitrates hit >160 and nitrites went off the charts. If they get that high and the pH drops, then it can be advantageous to do a water change, but at those levels I'd just ride wait it out.

Also, if you are doing a straight ammonia dose (best way to do it IMO, but then again I'm a chemist), if your ammonia is near 0 I would recommend dosing again, and continue dosing until you can go from 5ppm ammonia to 0 ppm ammonia AND 0 ppm nitrite in a 24 hour period. This way you can be sure you have strong populations of both nitrobacter and nitrosomonas bacteria on your rocks, and not think your cycle is over just because reaction kinetics let a small population of bacteria take care of your nitrogen (the bacteria that handle conversion of nitrite to nitrate grow WAY slower).

[FLEET]

Sounds like I will be dosing ammonia again when I get home...I would not have thought to do that.

[SushiGirl]

Most people just dose up to 1 ppm ammonia. Re-dosing is because you want to make sure the tank can quickly nitrify the ammonia and is great advice.