[mzcmn]

Hey folks, thanks for your help. How often and how much should I do water changes until the tank is completely cycled? Right now, ax is stil in fridge so that's not a factor.

I did a perfunctory 25% water change when I got back from my Florida vacation two days ago. The ammonia does seem to have come down a little bit, somewhere between .5 and 1. Should I be doing water changes daily, every two days or not at all? Again, axol not in tank right now. I am just curious if frequent water changes will help or harm the process, because as well as removing ammonia I am likely also removing beneficial bacteria that eats the ammonia that could be present trying to establish itself.

I am using the Red Sea Ammonia Fresh Test kit. It's not a good test. The directions are horrible. It claims to give "precise" measurements of NH3 and NH4, but the directions only refer to "toxic ammonia" levels and doesn't specify to whether it is NH3 or NH4, or a combination of the both put together. The directions are confusing/unclear and I assume, since the color card says NH3/NH4 ppm that it is just testing a total amount of both combined. They could have explained things much better. Don't buy this kit.

At any rate, it probably works because the levels show differently for the conditioned water pre-tank than the water in the tank, and the water in the tank is apparently starting to show slightly lower levels of ammonia.

The kit I use for pH, nitrites, nitrates and water hardness is the API 5 in 1 Aquarium Test Strips and I have no problem with that test. Still showing 0 or close to 0 of both nitrites and nitrates. My tank has been cycling now for four weeks, so maybe I don't have any cause for alarm and need to just wait it out.

I suppose this will give me an opportunity to clean out the planaria further. Can't wait to move Spotty out of the fridge!

Should I do a water change today? daily? weekly? what's the appropriate frequency during cycling? I know if he was in the tank, I would want to do it daily or every two days, but since he's not, I just want to do whatever will help the tank cycle through the fastest.
thnx.