Is my tank cycled???

[contractorto]

So I have a 200g tank that I dosed with dr Tim’s 13 days ago. I put 2 Ppm ammonium chloride as per instructions on day one and then accidentally added another 2ppm 3 days later. 4 ppm total was added. Fast forward a few days later and ammonia drops to 2ppm.

For the past 5 days my ammonia has stalled at 2ppm. Nitrites are over 5ppm and nitrates are at 20ppm.

I have done a 50% water change and still ammonia reading at .5-1 ppm. Why is my ammonia not going down unless I do a water change?

should I continue to do water changes till it’s 0? I mean isn’t my tank cycled if I have nitrates??

Or wait till ammonia goes to 0 on its own?

 

[blaxsun]

First, stop doing massive water changes. Second, have a bit more patience. You probably added to much ammonium and it's going to take the tank a bit longer to establish the bio filter in the rock, sand bed, etc. (assuming those are present)

Other than tank size we don't know anything about your filtration, etc. that could be having an impact.

 

[contractorto]

Im not running anything for filtration at the moment. Skimmer and and filter socks have been removed during the cycle. I have all dry rock and dry sand

 

[Subliminal]

You're probably cycled. I wouldn't add any more ammonia. I'd maybe get a few snails/crabs/cuc and see how they do and go from there.

 

[mjw011689]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/grasping-the-new-thinking-behind-cycling.973245/

hopefully this link worked. It’s to a thread I started not long ago about the same thing basically. For the record, I have not posted an update, but all the fish and my giant zoa colony (which I broke into 20+frags) have all been in there for several weeks at this point with no issues. Everyone’s happy. And also, out of curiosity I kept testing ammonia and noticed that my ammonia and nitrite zero’d out a couple days after adding all the fish.