New Freshwater Tank, Fishless Cycle Question

[DustinGerard]

Ammonia 0
Nitrite (appears off the chart, looks like dark reddish purple to me)
Nitrate 80
pH 8.0

Im trying to do a fishless cycle for the first time. I just did a grueling hour long 90% water change to lower my nitrites, but they appear to be the same. My questions are should i do another water change so soon or should i wait? Also should I add more ammonia? Im afraid to lose my bacteria, but with the nitrites so high i cant tell what they are and that would only add more to it.

 

[strollo22]

Don't do any water changes at all. Keep adding enough ammonia to keep producing nitrites and eventually it will only show nitrates

 

[pacu mom]

I would add ammonia to at least 2 ppm and when it is 0 ppm, add more. (Figure out how much ammonia to add to get the tank to 4ppm, then add half the amount). Once the ammonia starts dropping to 0 ppm, you don't have to add ammonia to 4ppm. It can take quite a while to colonize the nitrite consuming bacteria. Don't do water changes until the nitrites are 0 ppm. Only do a water change at the end to reduce the nitrates. Be patient. The nitrites will eventually get to 0ppm, and the nitrates will be off the chart at the end of the cycling process. It took weeks for the nitrites to drop when we cycled our 300 gallon tank.

 

[DustinGerard]

Ok i actually would prefer not to do water changes until the end anyway! I have plenty of time. My main concen is that i cant read my nitrites so i dont know how high they actually are and i have read that the bacteria cant handle a huge amount of nitrites

 

[pacu mom]

The bacteria that consume nitrites might be slow to establish, but they seem to be very hardy. We've had about three small ammonia spikes since our tank was set up in 2006 (all with known causes such as gross overfeeding, power outage, etc). We have never had any measurable nitrites.