Hello everyone, I'm trying to decide whether or not I should add ammonia and nitrifying bacteria into my tank. This is my third week into the nitrogen cycle and today my results are
Ammonia: 0.6
Nitrite:0.5
Nitrate:10
PH:8
Well since you have some nitrite, it seems like you already have nitrifying microbes (well, ammonia-oxidizers, not sure about nitrite-oxidizers) so probably no need to add nitrifying bacteria, unless you want to dose FritzZyme Turbo Start 900 or something just to 'boost' numbers if that might be something that might be worthwhile.
Depending on your school of thought when it comes to cycling, you may or may not need to dose ammonia. Clearly something produced ammonia in your tank, could just be some die-off (presuming the readings are right).
Now, my school of thought is, a tank is cycled if it can handle 2ppm ammonia a day, and that includes oxidizing it completely to nitrate. Others follow the same school, but only care about 2ppm oxidizing completely to nitrite a day. Others just go, so long as there are some ammonia and it is consumed (eventually reads 0), then you are done.
So personally, for my school of thought, what I'd do in this particular case is dose ammonia to get to 2ppm, then wait until ammonia and nitrite drops to 0. Then repeat, until ammonia and nitrite can read 0 after 24 hours of dosing 2ppm ammonia.
If you subscribe to the 'any amount of nitrification, specifically ammonia oxidation, is enough', then once ammonia drops to 0 you are good. The different is under the school of cycling I follow, you can fully stock your tank right away, at least where ammonia and nitrite is concerned. For other school of cyclings, it may be more of a slow ramp up starting with one or two live stock then adding more over time.
[EDIT]
I just saw your duplicated thread, and saw that you had been dosing ammonia and bottled microbes already. Everything I say still apply, except the presumption that ammonia came from a different source than dosed ammonia, and the suggestion to dose FritzZyme Turbo Start 900. You can just dose Microbacter XLM instead.
