Failing my fishless cycling

[Cody101]

I've started my tank a couple of weeks ago. I admit I added too much ammonia in the beginning and I have been trying to fix that mistake since then. I have done many water changes, my last one was 2 days ago with a 40% change. I checked my ammonia again and its still at 8.0 ppm. What else can I do to change that?

pH is also pretty high at 8.4. Is that because of the ammonia? I added the caribsea super natural moon sand recently and it says on the bag that it is pH neutral. Its made my water pretty cloudy and I'm also trying to fix that..

So yeah, I'm no where close to cycling my tank. Please help me ;__;

I use a nutrafin dechlorinator on my tap water. My tap water readings are 7.4 ph, and .50 ppm ammonia. I use the API master test kit.

 

[Kaini]

The only thing you can do to get the ammonia concentration down is water changes. If you want to start over you can just take out all the water and begin again.

Though if you do a 50% water change, logically that would remove 50% of the ammonia and get you right around the correct level to begin your cycle. After that it's just a waiting game of letting the bacteria colonize.

 

[Boomsloth]

yeah like said 50% will bring it down to 4ppm which is what you need. The only thing now is you don't know how much to add again once your nitrite begins to appear. How big is your tank?

Since its still early in your cycling I recommend just starting over so you know how much ammonia to keep adding. Start off with a small amount and let the water circulate for like 30 min so you get a more accurate reading. Pay attention to how much you added the first time. If you added one drop and you got 1.0ppm then only add two more drops because each drop won't be exactly 1.0ppm. Then as you start to see ammonia go down, add only 1-2 drops as needed never letting it get too high.