Not sure if i should i do a water change mid fishless cycle? I think its stalled

[Axel_Justice]

I'm on week 4 of my fishless cycle and it's kind of stalled, for over week my water parameters haven't moved.

They're currently at 1ppm ammonia

2ppm Nitrite

and 160ish ppm Nitrates

I'm contemplating a 20% water change but I don't want to potentially ruin my cycle

What should I do?

 

[wolfen]

with nitrates that high it would be best to do a 50% water change to bring it down to 80ppm, do a water change if it gets to 110ppm nitrates or higher, make sure to use dechlorinated water, keep an eye on the ph and try to keep it at about 7.4 - 7.6.
when the ph gets to low it can stall the cycle, use bicarbonate of soda to increase ph.
make sure you have enough filtration to cope with the ammonia level.
it can take a very long time to cycle a tank even months in some cases

 

[Axel_Justice]

with nitrates that high it would be best to do a 50% water change to bring it down to 80ppm, do a water change if it gets to 110ppm nitrates or higher, make sure to use dechlorinated water, keep an eye on the ph and try to keep it at about 7.4 - 7.6.
when the ph gets to low it can stall the cycle, use bicarbonate of soda to increase ph.
make sure you have enough filtration to cope with the ammonia level.
it can take a very long time to cycle a tank even months in some cases

Hey thank you for the reply.

I've got a big container full of rain water I'm going to boil (too kill any potential nasty stuff) and then use for water changed, turns out my tap water is super high nitrates!

I'll test the parameters of the rain water before adding it