How Long Does it take to fishless cycle a 5x2.5x2.5 tank

Having researched through the internet how to do a fishless cycle using ammonium hydroxide, I decided to undertake the project before my arowana arrives. It took me 3 weeks exactly to do the fishless cycle.

The recipe I used: start the tank with filter running. I am using a Eheim 2080XL rated for 1200 litres. My tank is about 850 litres. Next I put in the ammonium hydroxide (from a bottle of household ammonia I got from overseas). Using the API Master Test Kit, I put it measured amount of ammonia to get 5ppm. Thats about 24 teaspoonful for the large tank! I dump in this amount daily and I took daily measurement of Nitrite levels. Within a few days, I noticed the Nitrite spike. Then I reduced the daily amount of ammonia to half the initial amount: 12 teaspoonful and wait for the day when Nitrite drops to zero.

The Nitrite spike occurred within such a short time that I thought everything must be OK. Not so! In fact, the Nitrite level which is supposed to drop to zero, seem to remain forever high. After 8 days from the start of the Nitrite spike, I became desperate and borrowed a bag of filter material from friend's Koi pond, and sit it on the bottom of my tank. This is supposed to inoculate my new filter with benefial bacteria. Still the Nitrite level remain unchanged and I thought that my fishless cycling must have stalled!! Then after almost 3 weeks from the start,phew, I noticed the purple colour of the Nitrite test solution starts to lighten. If you are doing a fishless cycle, please take note that for me the Nitrite spike took more than 2 weeks!

When the Nitrite dropped to zero, the ammonia level remain zero and the Nitrate level was more than 80ppm. I did a water change of about 60% to get rid of the Nitrates. Yeeha!

[IRON MAIDEN]

Just to share bro.by the way im no expert but i just set up my 5x2x2.5 tank on sat evening.everything was new n old media n cc was rinsed before placing into my tank.i run the water for about 2 hrs,add anti clorine n 1 small cap of carbonate soda(run for another 1/2hr before i place all my fishes in.oncce my fishes are in, i pour 2 bottles of stress zymes to my medias compartment and also squeeze out my old filter to my medias.sat n sun the water was abit cloudy n this morning,water was crystal clear.i have only 1 casualty which is my silver dollars and im adding 2 caps of aquamedi just to treat the water.