Water parameters on a cycling tank

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Hi, I hope an expert can help me. I'm still new to marine after running fresh water tanks successfully for a few years.

My tank has been cycling for nearly 5 weeks now and I'm a little worried that my cycle has stalled. I am doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia I bought from the Chemist.

Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated.

My Tank:

200L Display tank
Base rock
Live sand
Two power heads
Two AI Primes

My Sump:

50L Sump
500L Bubble magus skimmer
300 Watt heater
Seachem Matrix
Return pump
Temp controller
Auto top off

I have been testing with a brand new Red Sea test kit. My parameters are:

Ammonia 6 ppm
Nitrite 0.5 ppm
Nitrate 2 ppm
Alkalinity 6
PH 8.2

I dosed 5ppm ammonia on the first day and another 5ppm a few days later. I added another 3ppm two weeks into the cycle and havent added since. Last week I also dosed for 7 days with Seachem Stability to try to improve the situation. My ammonia has dropped from 13ppm total to 6ppm total.

Should I just be patient and wait it out? Thanks
 
I dosed 5ppm ammonia on the first day and another 5ppm a few days later. I added another 3ppm two weeks into the cycle and havent added since. Last week I also dosed for 7 days with Seachem Stability to try to improve the situation. My ammonia has dropped from 13ppm total to 6ppm total. Should I just be patient and wait it out? Thanks

You can either wait it out or get Seachem Prime and dose, this will reduce Ammonia in a short duration
 
The rock is CaribSea South Seas Base Rock. Its natural rock that was mined as I understand it. No live critters

Thanks for the recommendation on the prime, I will use it as an absolute last resort but would prefer the cycle to finish naturally.
 
I dosed 5ppm ammonia on the first day and another 5ppm a few days later. I added another 3ppm two weeks into the cycle

That is a lot of ammonia to add to a tank, its going to take a long time for your biological filter to develop and remove that amount. Id probably do a large water change to bring that level of ammonia down.
 
As your bacteria population increase your parameters will come down. You can add something like stability or special blend. It will speed the process up
 
I would just add a bactgeria source and let it break down the ammonia. It might take a week or two and you might end up with high nitrates but you will have a bacteria population that can handle a decently stocked tank. That is the joy of a fishless cycle using a pure ammonia source. I cycled all my tanks like that. The reccomendation of the fishless cycle is to do the large waterchange afterwards to get rid of the nitrate. You will not impact the bacteria population since most of the bacteria will colonise on the rocks. Very little bacteria will be in the water column.
 
I was hoping to hold off on the water change for now and do it at the end as recommended. Thanks for all the advice. Would you say my bacteria colonies are established and my cycle is progressing?

I was thinking I would wait for the ammonia to drop to 0 and then dose to maybe 0.5ppm and let that zero again before adding fish?

Which bacteria source would you recommend mariusmeyer?
 
Can you post some pics?
Would like to see what your tank looks like compared to mine tank which is now cycling for 3 weeks.

img-6739.jpg


I havent had an algae bloom but I did have a diatom bloom
 
Firstly leave the lights off. You will just fuel unwanted algae. I used Microbelift special blend on my last cycle and before then I used brightwells microBacter 7.

Once your ammonia has dropped to 0, add that 0.5ppm ammonia and if the following day your ammonia and nitrite is 0 then your cycle is complete.

Once thing to bear in mind is that you will have a very big bacteria colony at the end of the cycle. And since you will be adding livestock slowly you will just have to feed the tank some stuff to keep the bacteria alive otherwise they will starve. A little bit of flake every 2nd day or so should be fine.
 
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