Is my tank cycled?

[linkedsilas]

i did this years ago. Got a new tank and trying again.
I used Dr Tim’s to start the cycle. Added the ammonia and the tests were reading what they were supposed to. Now my ammonia is gone but the nitrites have been hanging in there for about a week under 1ppm. I’ve added ammonia since and that went to zero the next day and still nitrites are the same. Do I hang in there, wait for nitrite to zero out , add ammonia again and do that whole process one more time, water change and add livestock?
Should I do a water change now because the ammonia has already lowered twice even though nitrite is still present and add livestock?

 

[Justin Cook]

What's the overall time frame? How long did it take to get the ammonia gone? And are you reading any nitrates?

 

[Irishman]

What did you spike your ammonia too ppm?

When I cycled my tank I did it to 2 PPM wait for levels to go down to zero or somewhere close, took about a month. Then spiked it to 2 PPM again and tested the next day, it read zero, so I did a water change and started adding fish.

 

[linkedsilas]

What did you spike your ammonia too ppm?

When I cycled my tank I did it to 2 PPM wait for levels to go down to zero or somewhere close, took about a month. Then spiked it to 2 PPM again and tested the next day, it read zero, so I did a water change and started adding fish.

They went to 2 ppm

 

[linkedsilas]

What's the overall time frame? How long did it take to get the ammonia gone? And are you reading any nitrates?

It took initially 5 days for ammonia to go to.50 the next to. 25 and then zero.
I added ammonia again when the nitrite went down some and it read to 2ppm and the next day it went to 0
Nitrate about 160

 

[Irishman]

I would say your good to add live stock. Not all of it at once though, you don’t want to shock your tank/ go through the ammonia cycle again. If you do monitor your params closely and have water change ready if it does get high in ammonia.

 

[Irishman]

How long did the initial cycle take?

 

[Justin Cook]

I always use the presence of nitrates to let me know that there's bacteria for the full cycle in place and doing there job. 160 on nitrates sounds pretty high for a fairly new setup. I don't know that I've every paid much attention to nitrites at all. Shoot, I haven't tested for ammonia regularly for years. I have a test kit for when there's something going on in my system and I can't figure it out. Whenever there's a fairly fresh tank, I like to limit my new additions to 2-3 fish so it doesn't cause an ammonia spike but other than that, you can start trying to get your nitrates down!

 

[linkedsilas]

Yea I was going to do a water change and yea that is high for nitrates.
This has been happening about 2 weeks and I added that dr Tim’s which claims you can do it sooner than cycling, I love my fish so I wasn’t going to test it and chance to lose them. Everything’s being shifted over when it’s ready