Not sure if I did what is normal however, when I started I was over excited about my Aquaponics garden and my thoughts were, why do the fishless cycle?
so I made my garden 
and put my fish in and planted my garden. 
18 months I have had troubles, 
testing each day average 7.6 Ph, Ammonia Nil, No2 Nil, No3 Nil. tried everything and could not get it up and going like it should. added extra fish. over feed my fish. killed some fish, lost all my water with a leak, refilled and lost my water again, used seasol and kept the plants alive but then i did the the hardest thing EVER. 
I took my fish out. (got a tank for the fish)(IBC) and started my fishless cycle. dead prawns for ammonia=not much differents (my tank is 2500 lit and at the moment I have only two garden beds 2400 x 1200 x 400 and there are more to go in) so I did not think I was over filtering. I read somewhere about house hold Ammonia so I went to coles, Cloudy Ammonia $1.39 litand decided to put in about a cup.
next day Ammonia 1.0ppm, PH 7.8 high range, No2 nil No3 nil.another cup the next day. Ammonia down No2 up. So I thought about it and
hell why not, no fish in there, put a full liter in. that was on the 29th Jan. BUT My fish tank how ever had the ph spike to 8.8 ph on the 03rd Feb. Went to add 5 mil of hydro acid and Murphys law hit. 5 liter container, 
yep into the drink to swim with my fish. however the fish did not want to swim with the acid and the PH now (within 2 min) was at 6.0 if not lower. so I got my fish ( that pretty much jumped into my hands) and pitched them back into the pond. at that stage the readings were ph 8, Amm 2.0, No2 0.50, No3 80. and the next day 04th Feb. 7.2 , 0 ,2.0, 160then I was amazed
on the 5th feb ph 7.2, Amm 0ppm, No2 0ppm and No3 between 80 and 160ppm and has now dropped to 40ppm. the readings are perfect for me but is it possible to do your fishless cycle in only 7 days? have I done damage or have I just had a lot of luck.
