Question about planted aquarium and fishless cycling

Hi GreenAmy,
You do not need to check the readings too frequently. Once every 24 hours is enough, and then add more ammonia accordingly. Do not expect ammonia to drop significant amount within a few hours. Even with live bacteria product, it is unusual to see an aquarium instantly cycled. So there has to be some trace of ammonia even by the end of every 24 hours. It is also normal to see nitrite before the aquarium is fully cycled.

Your goal is to be able to add minimal 2ppm ammonia and see all of it being converted to nitrate at the end of 24 hours. So as long as the ammonia is decreasing, and nitrate is increasing, you should keep adding ammonia back to minimal 2ppm every 24 hours. Partial water change is not needed until you see large PH drop to indicate water buffer is gone and needs to be restored. Otherwise too low PH might slow down or even stall the cycling process since the bacteria do not like too acidic water.