The LAST big upgrade

[Delphinus]

I went with mostly dry rock and some cooked rock in my tank and went with the Zeovit 14-day tank cycle. If memory serves my nitrites took a hair longer than the actual 14 advertised days to hit zero, but it was only a day or two later. I was skeptical but it worked and I started transferring livestock over and there were no nitrite bumps for any of the transfers (I waited up to a week in between transfers for some of the bigger fish.)

Only problem at 280g for me, it was a costly purchase of zeovit products (in my case I didn't mind TOO much as I had intended for the tank to be zeo anyhow) and it will only be that much worse for your tank's volume. But hey it was a 2 week cycle from 0% to 100%. It is a given of course that given more time it will cycle on its own so it comes down to how patient you are in that phase..