Cycling 15 gallon innovative marine

[GrizzReacts]

Started my cycling my tank on the 29th of June and started dosing Seachem prime & stablility this past Saturday and it got my ammonia to this I’d say between 0.50 - 0.25 ppm. Should I do a water change to hopefully bring it to 0 or should I continue to wait it out? Really wanted to get fish in here this week any feedback will be appreciated

 

[RaymondL]

First comment I have to share is that the API test kit especially for Ammonia always appears to read above 0 ppm - at least based on my use of it for my past 2 tanks. In other words, you'll never see the yellow, but a very off yellow green tinge to it. So even if Ammonia is zero, the API test kit will never report it as 0. To get an idea how the color would look, take a sample of a newly made batch of saltwater and use the API test kit on that. There should be no ammonia in the new saltwater, so you can use that as your baseline for comparing colors. That's what I did and how I found out that the API test kit is not reliable.

Based on what you shared here, you cannot add fish. You are way too early in the cycling to be thinking of adding any fish. Patience is a key - it'll take 4-5 weeks, and assuming you dosed bacteria.

Nitrites: API test is accurate - I didn't have any issues here. Nitrites are very high - it will go down eventually, and nitrates will build up. I would leave it until you see Nitrites start to drop and you should not be dosing any more ammonia until that happens. Yes, you can try changing out 50% of the water, and to bring the Nitrites down to hopefully 2-3 ppm, which then measure Ammonia again, and if it's still not at '0' do not dose Ammonia.

When it reads 0 then dose 25% of the Ammonia dose that you doses in the beginning. Nitrites will go up while Ammonia goes down, do not dose Ammonia until you see Nitrites decreasing. Once that happens, dose again the 25% Ammonia (~every 2 days) and keep monitoring. Eventually, Nitrites will decrease rapidly, Nitrates go up....while you're adding Ammonia, Nitrites will continue to go down, and eventually read zero one morning. When that happens, dose for 2ppm Ammonia, and Nitrites and Ammonia should read zero after 24 hours. That's when you know you're done.