help on fishless cycle

[Dra49ers]

I have a 40g system 30 in the display and 10 in the sump. Started my cycle March 16th using 20lbs arag-alive sand and 20lbs of life rock, 1 bottle of dr. Tim’s and started the cycle with dr Tim’s ammonium chloride. After still seeing ammonia and no2 3 weeks later but also finding 100ppm no3. Performed 50% water change and continued to wait still kept seeing ammonia and no2. By week6 added brightwell xlm start and notice ammonia would go from .5 to .25 then after a few days went back up to .5 and nitrite would be at 2.0. Checked my rodi water and verified 0 ammonia, no2 and no3. I know your supposed to be patient but it has been x2 longer than normal for a cycle especially when using live nitrifying bacteria. The only thing I can think of is that I did find just before adding rock and water to the tank my live sand had become open during shipping and once I compared it to a new bag at the lfs realized how much moisture was missing from my sand then I thought. Could it be the live sand had all died releasing ammonia into my tank continuing to keep the cycle going. Sorry for the essay but I just trying to give all necessary info to get the correct answer to what’s going on. Thanks for your help

 

[brandon429]

your cycle is done for this reason: liferock activates in a couple weeks time underwater, plus you've added bottle bac. your testers if searched are known for misreads, so just use timing biology. change out your cycle water, add something, post an update pic two days after adding. anything you add to an uncycled tank will die overnite unless the system is very large. we can proof your cycle/and submersion testless cycle timing by you adding something and it will stay alive.

also in patterns: there are approximately 100+ threads exactly like yours on r2r, and they all turn out the same way after this many days underwater. raw stats says you are cycled as well.