Fishless Cycling almost 2 months now, HELP

[jpsika08]

Hello, I recently setup a 300 gallon reef system, I’m not new in the hobby but have been disconnected for over three years now.

I’m fishless cycling the tank, I always used a raw shrimp so it would rot and used bottled bacteria (as I had dry rock) to start up the cycle.

Anyways, I cycled three systems like this in the past and no problem, all of them within a month the cycle would finish; but for this new one, instead of a shrimp I used raw fish, and also organic ammonia, at the end I resulted with above 10ppm of ammonia, during the first month the nitrites went up and after a week of that the ammonia began coming down.

As of now, the tank has been cycling for over 55 days now and nitrites (Based on two test kits) are well above 10ppm, I think this thing is stalled, I have read everywhere that doing a 10% water change can delay the cycling process, and after almost two months cycling, my patience is running low.

Can someone give me any light on what to do?

Water parameters are @:
PH: 8 – 8.2
Salinity : 1.021
Alkalinity 2.5meq/L
Temp: 23C
Ammonia: 0
Nitrtie: 10ppm+
Nitrate: 20ppm (Not sure if so much nitrites are affecting this result)

System has 300 gallons’ overall water.
Dry rock (Now with algae on them)

Thank you

[oldbones]

Maybe a bottle of Stability or similar bacteria starter would help? This would be my recommendation.

http://www.marinedepot.com/Seachem_Laboratories_Freshwater_and_Marine_Stability_Saltwater_Aquarium_Additives_Supplements_Bacter ia_Supplements-Seachem-SC4485-FIADBS-vi.html

[thegrun]

10ppm of ammonia will slow down a cycle, same for the high nitrites. It would take a lot larger than a 10% water change to get things back on track, more like a 50% water change. I agree your best alternative at this point would be to use one of the bacteria in a bottle products like Dr. Tim's One and Only.

[jpsika08]

Thank you both, I will look into these solutions.