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My situation is different, with just a 10g, I tend to leave everything running and do more frequent, but smaller water changes. One 2g bucket is convenient for a 15% weekly water change.

After...

From your first post, I'm confused about whether you are trying to cycle with or without fish. If fishless (recommended), then you will have quicker results with pure ammonia rather than fish flakes...

Congrats on the nitrate spike and zero ammonia - you're on your way. You're doing fine, and just need to wait out the time it takes for that nitrite to drop. For me, it took about 10 days. A couple...

Followed Cliff's advice. After 10 or so hours, ammonia was back down to 0.0 ppm, nitrites as well, and nitrates were still around 40-80 ppm. I call it done!

Brought down the temperature, did a...

I didn't have a chance to check this morning. Based on past experience, it probably got me to 0.50 ppm or somewhat higher.

Ammonia: slightly higher than 0.00 ppm (residual from 40 drops the previous evening)
Nitrites: 0.00 ppm!
Nitrates: 80 ppm

I think I'm pretty much done, will recheck in the morning, and if...

Thanks, Cliff. 20 more drops tonight, as my ammonia level after the first 20 was hovering around just 0.25 ppm.

It looks like I might be just a few of days from finishing my fishless cycle. I have a 10 gallon and plan to put 8-10 white cloud mountain minnows in there. My question is, if I've fully cycled,...

Back from Florida, ran downstairs to test the tank, and here's what I came back to:

Ammonia: 0.00-0.25 ppm
Nitrites: 2.00 ppm? Tough to say, but definitely took longer to turn purple than usual,...

No testing, out of state. My neighbor (presumably, haven't talked to her yet) dosed 20 drops of ammonia each day as per instructions.

Ammonia: 0.00-0.25 ppm
Nitrites: 5.0+ ppm
Nitrates: no time to test, running out the door to airport!

Quickly dosed 40 drops.

I'm definitely seeing this myself right now. It'll drop from 1.0 ppm or higher to nearly 0.0 ppm in 12 hours these days.

I found my pure ammonia (no surfactants) at my local hardware store. Very cheap and I am unlikely to run out in this lifetime. :)

Surprising that it would drop from 2.0 ppm to 0.5-1.0 ppm back in mid-March and then sit there until yesterday. But perhaps now it's dropping again. If it looks even closer to 0.0-0.25 today, I would...

To my eyes both look a little darker... But no worries, I agree with kattiq that you shouldn't add more at this point, wait until it's back under 0.50 ppm before dosing again.

Ammonia 0.00 ppm (or a bit higher)
Nitrites 5.0+ ppm
Nitrates 10.0-20.0 ppm

Given recent experience, I decided to dose it with 40 drops of ammonia. Checked an hour later, and ammonia was up to...

From 3/19/12 until now, have you been dosing the tank with ammonia? Or has it remained stable during that period without you adding any new ammonia. I would think if the cycling process is...

Well, it depends on whether the person is impatient to have a cycled tank or impatient to have fish in his/her tank. I suspect it's the latter.

Like most here, I strongly recommend the OP do the...

My daughter would love that gravel! :)

Sounds like you are deciding to go with cycling with fish. You can tell people mostly prefer fishless cycling around here, but if that's your choice, make...

Snuck in another ammonia test this morning, and it was reading between 0.25 and 0.50 ppm. Decided to give it one more dose of 20 drops before leaving for work.

Tested for ammonia this morning and it's still reading 0.25 ppm. I think my nitrifying bacteria are eating up the ammonia as fast as I'm putting it in, which is good. Dosed 20 drops and will retest...

Tested again, now ammonia is definitely at 0.25 ppm. Added 10 more drops, and will test again in the morning.

Will do, Cliff. Thanks for the check-in.

Levels tonight:

Ammonia 0.00-0.25 ppm (so added 10 drops, will check again tonight if possible)
Nitrites 5.0+ ppm
Nitrates 10-20 ppm (they sure look...

Welcome to the community!

+1 to pjoo1120 and CrunchyLeaf. This is a very helpful community here, but you're occasionally going to hear advice that is right on, but perhaps not what you want to...

In that case, I'll need to add more than 3 drops each day, I think! It took about 30 to get it up to 2.0 in the first place.

Also, my whole family will be away for a couple of days at the end of...