Double Checking Where I Am With My Cycle

Hi all I'm just in the middle of doing my fish less cycle and just a tad confused as to what I'm doing so after a double check.

I'm up to #8 on the step by step that was written by sue. Two days ago I added the full dose if ammonia that I added in the first place and today 2 days later I have just run a test. Ammonia was 0 and nitrite was 3.3 so now do I add 1/3 of the ammonia I put in at the start and test again in 2 days?  The bit I need to double check in the 2 consecutive tests of a 0 ammonia reading and a nitrite reading of less than 1ppm, now when I get the first reading of that do I add 1/3 Amount if ammonia again or not? Sorry if I've complicated things just want to double check I've got this right!

I've got to stage 8 in a week was that the same as you? I was expecting this to be about 2 weeks for some reason.

At stage #7, you start testing every second day. So for example, testing Monday, Wednesday, Friday etc

Stage #8 is when you test on a Monday (for example) and have some ammonia; you test again on Wednesday and have zero ammonia; test on Friday and have zero ammonia again. That's two consecutive tests (Wed & Fri) with zero ammonia. So on Friday, add the one-third dose of ammonia.

Continue testing every second day.

At stage #9, when you have zero ammonia as in stage #8 in two tests, if your nitrite is also over 1.0, add the one third dose again on the day of the second zero ammonia.

You will have reached stage #10 once your nitrite reading shows less than 1.0.


Does that help 

Nitrite levels is the reason for this newer method of fishless cycling. The level at which the nitrite eaters we want to grow are inhibited is 15ppm. But our test kits can't measure that high, and doing tests on diluted samples needs pure water to dilute with and very accurate measuring equipment.
1ppm ammonia is turned very approximately into 2.5ppm nitrite. Limiting the amount of ammonia we add with this method means the nitrite level cannot exceed 15ppm. The old method of adding 5ppm ammonia every time ammonia dropped to zero produced very high levels of nitrite which is why the older method took longer to complete.

Your nitrite level will probably go off the top of the scale - the tester will just read the highest colour on the chart, but as long as you have followed the instructions, your actual nitrite reading should not go above 15ppm.