Started Fishless Cycle

Hi, I have started the fishless cycle of my 200 LTR aquarium, I added 4ml of ammonia three days ago and ammonia ppm was around 4 - 5 , I added another 3ml of ammonia today and ppm is the same and there is no nitrite reading ? is this normal ? This is the first time I have done a fishless cycle so have nothing to compare it to    ,

Hi, thanks for the reply, yeah I am following it, because it says test for nitrites I sort of expected there to be some indication that nitrites would be present. I am only a few days in, so will calm down and be patient 

What was the ammonia reading before adding the second dose? It should be below 0.75 ppm before adding any more ammonia.
Also, I would do a water change to get the ammonia level down to 3 ppm. if you add too much ammonia it will make so much nitrite that the cycle will stall.

Have you used any mature media to kick start the cycle? That sometimes results in ammonia dropping low but no nitrite appearing.

Put it down to my poor skills at explaining 

Yes, continue testing every third day until ammonia has dropped below 0.75. By then, nitrite should be over 2 ppm. Because of their molecular weights (or whatever that's called these days) 1 ppm ammonia is turned into 2.6 ppm nitrite.
When I did a fishless cycle, I did find that the ammonia reading sort of wandered about a bit until nitrite started to show up, then it dropped quite quickly. Unlike nice chemical reactions which follow nice predictable paths, we are dealing with biological entities which never stick to the path properly 

Still around 3 - 4 ppm ammonia and no sign of nitrite , just over a week in now. I have turned the heater up full , I read somewhere that this can help the process, but got to say it's worse than watching paint dry 

My fishless cycle did nothing till day 26 

Do you have soft or hard water? If it soft you probably also have low KH. Let us know if it is soft as there are things you can do.

I had missed that, thank you fcmf.

There are two aspects to low KH - and KH is a measure of the amount of carbonate and bicarbonate in tap water.
Firstly, the bacteria need inorganic carbon to grow at an optimum rate. Inorganic carbon is basically carbonates and bicarbonates.
Second, fishless cycling makes a lot of nitrite and then nitrate. Both of these are acidic. The substances that make up KH react with these acids to stop the pH falling. If KH is high, there is no problem but if KH is low it will all get used up leaving nothing to stop the pH falling. With my first fishless cycle and KH of just 3, I had a pH crash - the pH dropped off the bottom of the scale. This stalls the cycle as the bacteria stop multiplying below pH about 6.5

The solution is to either do a lot of water changes, redosing ammonia to the level it was before the water change; or add bicarbonate of soda. This is found in small plastic tubs in the home baking section of the supermarket - there may already be some in your kitchen cupboards.
Add some bicarb to a bit of water and when it has all dissolved, pour it into the tank. I used it at the rate of 1 level 5 ml spoon in 25 litres. It will also cause your pH to go up which is not a problem as the bacteria multiply faster at higher pH.
Test pH every time you test ammonia & nitrite so you'll be able to pick up a potential pH crash before it happens.

At the end of a fishless cycle you do a big water change to remove all the nitrate made during the cycle. If you remove as much water as possible, this will also remove virtually all the bicarbonate of soda. Once there are fish in the tank you'll be doing 50% weekly water changes which will top up the natural KH. The pH may drift slightly lower between water changes but the water changes will prevent a pH crash.

KH seems very low, put one drop in and the sample turned blue as it should, second drop turned the sample to a very light yellow. According to my test kit the value is 1 dh , ideal value should be 6 dh. I will look in the cupboard for the bicarb and add some to the water.

OK, I have added around 5 teaspoons of bicarb and this has raised the KH to 7 , the PH has raised slightly to 8,
this is according to the test chart . I am using the Aquarium Lab, NT labs kit.

Thanks for all the advice  , i'll test again in a couple of days.