Started Fishless Cycle

It's great feeling isn't it  Nitrite should start to shoot up now since 1 ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7 ppm nitrite.

Great to hear that your tank cycling is moving along in the right direction. 

It might be worth waiting until later in your cycle to add the plants, just to be on the safe side.

Some types of lava rock are calcareous, which means they'll alter the hardness and pH of the tank water. Test before putting it in the tank. If you have the API test kit, nitrate bottle #1 contains hydrochloric acid, put one drop on the rock and see if it makes tiny bubbles. If it doesn't give it a good wash under the tap and use it. If it does form bubbles, you need to decide whether you want to risk it. Or you could try leaving it in a bucket of water and test pH after a week. Also leave a sample of tap water standing alongside it and test that after a week as well. If the two are the same, the rock is not affecting the water.

OK, I have 0 ammonia which was a bit of a shock  , I have high nitrate levels , i would say around three on my chart , but could be higher. Shall i add ammonia now or wait until tomorrow ??

Yes sorry sue, i mean nitrites , i added ammonia on Saturday which brought it back up to 3 ppm. Just checked today and the ammonia is 0 and the nitrates look to be around 3. shall i wait until i get another 0 reading tomorrow or add more ammonia now to bring it back up to 3 ppm ??

If you added 3 ppm ammonia on Saturday, do another test of Wednesday, and if ammonia is till zero, add just 1 ppm ammonia. This is to keep the ammonia eaters fed while the nitrite eaters multiply without making so much nitrite that the cycle stalls.
Nitrite of 15 ppm inhibits the growth of the nitrite eaters. But our test kits don't go that high, and to get a realistic results by diluting tank water we would need pure water to dilute it with and very accurate measuring equipment.

In theory, you added 3 ppm ammonia to start the cycle, then 3 ppm on Saturday when ammonia dropped. 6 ppm in total. Since 1 ppm ammonia makes 2.7 ppm nitrite, that 6 ppm ammonia will turn into 12.2 16.2ppm. If you add another 3 ppm, that will make another 8 ppm nitrite which will push it well over the critical 15 ppm. It won't be quite that much because there will be a few nitrite eaters, and they will increase slowly in number, but they won't make a huge impact on the nitrite level for a while yet. So we add just 1 ppm so the ammonia eaters don't go hungry, and this should not push nitrite over 15 ppm.


Edited for terrible maths. 2.7 x 6 is 16.2 not 12.2 like I said 

Another week on, and i'm getting 0 ammonia results after adding 1ppm every two days. The nitrites are dropping and would say they are somewhere between 1 and 2, i will check again tomorrow before i add more ammonia, but things are definitely moving in the right direction.
The water is very clear and i noticed tonight when doing the tests that it smells like a fish tank, if you know what i mean  , which considering i don`t have any fish in there surprised me a bit.

Great to hear that your cycle is doing well. 

Just read it again, i'll add the 3ppm today and check again tomorrow. If the nitrate level is still between 10 and 20 ppm , do i still do the big water change ??

Yes, i did use bicarb, so will do a big water change. Is it OK to clean the substrate as well ??