Can too much ammonia freeze your cycle? (Fishless)

[freemike]

I'm really bad at reading those color keys. Anyways the other day I had Nitrates, Nitrites, and Ammonia. My nitrates have went up since then, nitrites went down to 0 and ammonia stayed consistent. It was a deep emerald green either 4 or 8 PPM. I was wondering if this would have frozen my cycle? I did a major water change tonight right at 5 gallons. This brought down the ammonia to either 1 or 2 PPM. Will this get it moving again or have is there another thing that would cause a cycle to freeze all nitrites being converted to nitrates and leaving the ammonia high?

[Draug Isilme]

Supposedly when ammonia stays at an uber high level, nitrites that might be in the water become dormant- at least that's what I was told. I'd look up more info to back it up, but nothing's coming up >.< Anyway, when I had my ammonia about 2-3 ppm's, I had to do a large water change to keep it at least 1ppm or lower; then a few days after I noticed that nitrites were starting to show, so I figured it was true xD Just wait a few days and keep it 1ppm or lower and you should start seeing results soon. Key part in cycling a tank.. patience and knowing it'll work with the method you're doing even if it seems like it's doing just the opposite >.>

[LittleBettaFish]

Too high an ammonia level can also cause the wrong kind of bacteria to grow. I believe you don't want it to go any higher than 4ppm during a fishless cycle.

The growth of bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrites is also one of the slowest parts of the cycle so it's not uncommon for it to seem to take a long time.

[Draug Isilme]

^ Huh, didn't know that the 'wrong bacteria' could grow with high ppm's... Thanks for the added info ^.^ I've learned something today!!!

[Bombalurina]

I've heard 5ppm touted as the ideal to encourage nitrites without encouraging badness.