fishless cycling with ammonium chloride

[banasophia]

Yes, agreed, I would wait until the cycle is complete then do a very large water change at the end to get the nitrate level down to the 10-20 range before adding any livestock

[W1ll]

Thanks for the help everyone. I did a 50% water change and lowered Nitrite down to 2ppm and Nitrate got to about 80ppm. After performing the water change, I re-dosed ammonia back up to 2ppm and I'll just continue to test regularly and wait until I can process 2ppm in 24hrs. 

[seabass]

Perfect.

[MSunkin23]

My tank is still stuck at 0.5ppm Nitrite. How is your cycle going? 

[seabass]

3 hours ago, MSunkin23 said:

My tank is still stuck at 0.5ppm Nitrite.

If you are seeing nitrate, then the bacteria is present.  I'd dose back up to 2ppm again.

[MSunkin23]

Yupp! Already dosed to 2ppm between my post and yours. I also tossing in some micro Bacter 7 for a little boost.

 

I know patience is key, so going slow and steady. Prob 1 month out before fish 

[W1ll]

On 6/16/2021 at 2:31 PM, MSunkin23 said:

My tank is still stuck at 0.5ppm Nitrite. How is your cycle going? 

About 4 days ago, for the first time, my tank processed 2ppm ammonia entirely into nitrate within 24hrs with a tiny trace of nitrite, almost undetectable. My nitrates were quite literally off the charts at this point so I performed a 90% water change to get them down to the more acceptable level of about 15ppm (I suspect some of the algae growing in the tank is chewing up some nitrate). After one final water test to confirm that both ammonia and nitrite were zero, I went and picked up 2 juvenile ocellaris clownfish from my LFS. These two clowns are absolutely tiny, about 2.5cm long, and so I figured they wouldn't overload the bacteria. I am making sure to feed lightly and continuing to test the water every day and I probably will continue to do so for the next week or so to make sure I have no spikes in anything. So after 16 days of cycling, the tank finally finished. I'll probably let everything settle down for a few months and introduce a CUC at some point, and then I can add some corals and get some reef action happening!  

[MSunkin23]

Looks good, one last recommendation is to hold off on corals for a bit and leave the lights off. What I plan to do is keep my lights on at 10% throttle so at least there is some illumination. 
 

this is because your bacteria still needs to ramp up with the waste load of the fish. If the light is on, your algae is going to win. If it’s off (or low) your fish will be fine and the bacteria will have a chance to dominate.

 

good luck!