fishless cycling

[youn6b]

I'm doing an experiment on fishless cycling on a 20 gallon tank. This is my first time trying this out. It's been cycling for about a week now. The ammonia ppm reads 4. Nitrites read 0. I didn't use any gravel or filter media to jump start it. My question is how long does it usually take for ammonia to start dropping?

 

[Charney]

i think it is typically around ten days, but not positive.

 

[youn6b]

O ok. Was thinking it would never go down. How much does it take for nitrites to go down after that?

 

[Charney]

you can google a graph of the nitrogen cycle to get a better idea. I think the nitrogen is another 7 to 14 days, but also depends on tank size. To be honest I haven't looked into this for a while, but that should be about right.

 

[anarekist]

dont you need to introduce at least some bacteria from somewhere? or are they just 'everywhere' ?

 

[youn6b]

Thanks. The graph was a big help. This looks like its going to take longer than I thought. If i were to put some gravel in from an established tank right now, how much would that speed things up?

 

[Charney]

for any fishless cycle I think you are looking at a month min. The gravel will help, just not sure how much. I just did a fishless cycle on my 125. It has a 2 AC110 and one fx5. Two of the sponges for my AC had been sitting in another tank for months. The tank took about 3 weeks to cycle. I kept adding ammonia in to feed the filters for another month to make sure the filters were ready for my bio load.

 

[Charney]

Also are you making sure your adding ammonia with no detergent?

 

[youn6b]

I'm not doing pure ammonia as my source. I'm using raw shrimp.I couldn't find pure ammonia anywhere. That's why I'm using the shrimp. It's providing a good amount of ammonia so far