Cycling with Ammonia & Upcoming Vacation

[kfoerster]

Sorry I know there are tons of cycling questions out here and I've tried to find a similar situation by searching without success. Hoping someone can help.

32 Gallon Biocube with 2.5 pounds of live rock and additional dead rock.
Salinity 1.024
Temp: 78.5
Fiji pink live sand (but well rinsed before putting in tank

I've been dosing ammonia for 2 weeks now slowly building to 2.0 ppm which I hit a couple days ago. I dose daily at the same time. Nitrites at .50ppm and Nitrates at 10-20ppm (this one is hard to read on the API test kit) for the past several days.

Do I keep dosing ammonia and keep it at 2.0ppm until it reads zero after 24 hours? Or am I over dosing?

Lastly, I'm a week away from a vacation. Any tips and tricks for keeping the cycle going while I'm away besides shrimp? I'll be gone for 8 days.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bryn]

Sorry I know there are tons of cycling questions out here and I've tried to find a similar situation by searching without success. Hoping someone can help.

32 Gallon Biocube with 2.5 pounds of live rock and additional dead rock.
Salinity 1.024
Temp: 78.5
Fiji pink live sand (but well rinsed before putting in tank

I've been dosing ammonia for 2 weeks now slowly building to 2.0 ppm which I hit a couple days ago. I dose daily at the same time. Nitrites at .50ppm and Nitrates at 10-20ppm (this one is hard to read on the API test kit) for the past several days.

Do I keep dosing ammonia and keep it at 2.0ppm until it reads zero after 24 hours? Or am I over dosing?

Lastly, I'm a week away from a vacation. Any tips and tricks for keeping the cycle going while I'm away besides shrimp? I'll be gone for 8 days.

Thanks in advance!

The cycle will be there when you come back, maybe not as strong, but still there. Go on vacation and do not worry.

Next, stop adding ammonia, you only needed to get it going, supporting it is fine, but you will just have a lot of Nitrate at the end to get rid of, and if you have lights on, or close to natural light, maybe the start of an Algae problem, hopefully not. I only start with about 2ppm, check it five days later, see where I am and add maybe another one or two applications bringing the ppm back up to 2ppm. I'm not so worried about the ppm, more the color change, indicating to me that things are moving in the right direction.

 

[kfoerster]

The cycle will be there when you come back, maybe not as strong, but still there. Go on vacation and do not worry.

Next, stop adding ammonia, you only needed to get it going, supporting it is fine, but you will just have a lot of Nitrate at the end to get rid of, and if you have lights on, or close to natural light, maybe the start of an Algae problem, hopefully not. I only start with about 2ppm, check it five days later, see where I am and add maybe another one or two applications bringing the ppm back up to 2ppm.

Thank you so much, I'm glad I asked, I would have kept dosing away. Appreciate the feedback! Lights have been off and some natural light but no direct sunlight hits the tank so hopefully I'm good there. I won't dose again and will check in a few days to see where I am.

 

[Bryn]

Thank you so much, I'm glad I asked, I would have kept dosing away. Appreciate the feedback! Lights have been off and some natural light but no direct sunlight hits the tank so hopefully I'm good there. I won't dose again and will check in a few days to see where I am.

Send me a message if you have any questions, as I might miss this thread.