switching to fishless cycle

[Garcia64]

so I am very new and I started my cycle with two very young clownfish, advice from the LFS, I later have read many forums from here and have decided to give them away to a more mature tank and I will switch to a fishlesscyle. As of this morning my Ammonia is about .25 and my Nitrites between .5-1, I have about 20 pounds of live rock and 25 pounds of live sand and I added Bio spira. I have a 29g biocube. My question is should I let this cycle go through as is or should I had a shrimp or fish food to add ammonia, I started on 09/26

 

[Sk8r]

You're going the right way.
TO cycle, I just add a little fishfood every day, then get ammonia, then add fishfood five more days to be sure the tank can now NOT get ammonia.

 

[Garcia64]

what do you mean by get ammonia

 

[Garcia64]

and how much food

 

[WhoScott]

What he means it make sure that when you test your water your ammonia hasn't spiked. It means that the bacteria for that stage of the cycle is present. As for the fish food it won't take much. Just put in what you might have fed the fish that you got rid of, nothing more should be neccessary.

 

[fredfish13]

feed the tank fish food every day. you should have detectable levels of ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates within a week or two. keep doing this and test every 2-3 days. once your levels of ammonia and nitrites are 0 and nitrates are detectable and high, you are basically cycled. you do a large water change and can slowly add livestock.
I always use ammonia and fish food to cycle my tanks. very easy.

 

[Garcia64]

Just an update, I added a shrimp about 4 days ago to get the ammonia up and it only went up to 1ppm if that, but my nitrite spiked up to 5ppm, I am much happier with the fishless cycle

 

[Bent]

Good job man. You get the gold star.

 

[jevolk]

So I am recycling my 180 how many shrimp would be need for that. I did add dr tims to it on sunday.

 

[jevolk]

I c ompletely tore down . Got rid of the crushed coral and added sand in bottom added 75 more pounds of Marco rock. The 85 pounds I had in there was soaking in a tub with a power head. So actually I am starting over.