New tank cycle question

[flameangel88]

I'd LS & LR added into the tank on 3/27 (last Monday) and last night the ammonia was at 1.0 and nitrate was at 50 and after a 25% water change the ammonia came down to .5 and nitrate down to 20. PH has been stable at 8.0 (I've been adding buffer 4 days now but can't seem to bring it up over 8.0 but was about 7.5 when I started adding).

Question:

1) Do I need to do any water change to bring the parameters down more? If yes, how much water change would you suggest?

2) Where am I in the cycling process? Can I add more LR and critters this week?

Thanks for your help!

 

[davidryder]

the cycle will take 3-5 weeks... try to be patient and don't worry about too much in the mean time. you should do tests daily to give yourself an idea of what happens while the tank is cycling. a small weekly water change is ok but you shouldn't expect those readings to stabilize for at least 3 weeks.

good luck and have fun!!

 

[flameangel88]

Thanks David. Before I went away for the weekend I tested the ammonia level on friday night and it was .5 and nitrate was around 40 and was a bit alarmed when I came home on sunday as both parameters shot up. Both SG been staple at 1.023 and Temp bet. 76-78.

 

[davidryder]

yeah that's pretty normal.

check out some of these links:

<a href="http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/bionitrogencycle/f/blqawaterchange.htm">http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/bionitrogencycle/f/blqawaterchange.htm</a>

<a href="http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/biologicalnitrogencycle/index.htm">http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/biologicalnitrogencycle/index.htm</a>