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I'm in the process of cycling my 68 gallon tank using 6, 4" koi that will return to my pond in spring. the fish were put in sept 26 and quickly the ammonia rose to a spike (measured at 7). my ammonia has held to this spike ever since, ive finally started to get my nitrite spike (today measured at >1, thanks to dosing bio-spira). there is no nitrate reading yet and my Ph has been a constant 7.4 or so.

the fish swim and eat as happy as could be and seem like they are clueless to the process, no flashing or acting weird, there is plenty of oxygen thanks to a powerhead and aquaclear 500 (im adding a rena flistar XP3 monday). Ive also been doing a 20% water change every 2-3 days.

so finally my question/s.... How am i doing in the cycling process?
When can i hope to see my ammonia finally retreat? very soon?
and anything else anyone can thnk of, i was going to add a very small amount of salt today <.1% to prevent any nitrie poisoning.

What are you using to treat your water during weater changes? Many products will gve you a false positive for ammonia. I would think that if you actually had a high level of ammonia that your fish would have burned their gills and be gasping at the surface.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

the water out of my tap contains no chlorine, outside of some stress zyme im not treating it before adding it. by way of the powerhead and the AC500 creating surface agitation there seems to be a ton of oxygen, bubbles run as deep as 16" down from the surface where the AC dumps in and the powerhead pumps a ton out about 6" down from the surface on the other end of the tank. the ammonia level is as stated though and ive started and plan to continue 20% daily water changes... what i am wondering is when i can hope to see my ammonia level drop, especially now that ive finally gotten a nitrite spike (earlier today).

I dunno, six koi seems like a lot of fish to cycle with. The cycling process is not a quick one. it will take maybe a month to complete.
When you are doing your water changes do you also gravel vac? Doing so will only lengthen the cycling time. If your nitrites are on the way up yuor ammonia should subside soon, even tho the koi are making a lot of it. As it happens watch for nitrates.

yup that has been my rookie mistake, ive been gravel vac-ing during all my water changes, but that stops today. i heard somewhere it was best to cycle with 3-5 inches of fish per 10 gallons, guess i kind of went with that without truly knowing if it were a good standard. off to test the water, thanks for the help

OK, cycling the tank.
The nitrogen cycle
First, fish produce waste products (poo, uneaten foods etc) which ceates ammonia.
Second, bacteria grows which (eats) the ammonia and converts it to nitrite.
Third, more bacteria grows which (eats) the nitrites and converts them to nitrates.
This beneficial bacteria grows on your filter media, as well as on your decorations and in your gravel. By doing a gravel vacuuming you are removing the gunk in the gravel. This gunk is largely the beneficial bacteria.
Nitrates are the least toxic to your fish of the three, but can still be harmful to fish if the level of nitrates gets too high. Most people I think try to keep their nitrates at about 10-20 ppm. If the tank is planted, the plants do help remove nitrates and also oxygenate the water.
Hope this helps, and welcome to the hobby.