Im in the first stages of the cycle , and my ammonia is peaking , how long untill i should see my nitrites showing , also how often should i do water changes ?

I only ask because every place you look there are diffrent conflicting statements.

Hello McBlender,

did you ever get a response? I'm not too sure about this site. I'm in the process of starting a new tank as well. However, I'm cycling fishless, just using pure ammonia. It's working so far, ammonia levels peaked and are back to 0, and now the nitrites are up so I'm waiting for them to fall. It'll be 5 weeks tomorrow since I started the process. From what I understand, patience is very important. I hope you have cycled and are having success. I think for cycling with fish you need to do a 10-15% water change every other day since the ammonia and nitrite levels are so dangerous for the fish. With fishless cycling you don't have to since there are no fish. What I'm worried about now is the pH of our water here. I need to find out why there are 2 pH charts. From my test results we have very high pH at least 7.6 Everything I've read says it's more dangerous to try to change the pH than to let the fish acclimate to what you've got but keep it clean.

Anyhow, good luck.

The fish-less cycling process worked like a charm. Ammonia, nitrite levels hit 0 at barely 5 weeks and Nitrate stays at about 10 with weekly 10-15% water change. Fish are happy and healthy. I would recommend this to anyone...no harm to any fishes :-)

i am on my 5th week...i never really tested the water for the amonia spike but i noticed when me fish got a little uncomfortable and i did a 15% water change each time. just happened to be on the first 2 sundays. now i am on my 6th week with crystal clear water without a change and the fish look very comfortable. i am sure the ammonia has lowered and the nitrates are at least comfortable. the fish i have that gets really uncomfortable is the chinese algea eater...he must have been very sensitive to the spikes cause he was going insane the first week after i put him in, now he is fairly mellow as he should be. in the past i didn't even know about cycling and did fairly well only lost 2 outta 10 on that initial setup and never knew why i lost em. but it seems it has gained much attention in the last 10 or so years.

I don't think 7.6 is really that high! most fish can accept slightly acidic water but 7.0 is neutral. anything below is alkaline and anything over is acid! what you have to realise is that when it rains the water would be slightly more acid anyway!