Is this normal for a cycle?

[Luke_burrell]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the fish keeping hobby. I have a 3 gallon tank that I plan on upgrading to a 10 or 20 gallon sometime soon. In my current tank I am doing a fishless cycle and I am about a week into the cycle. I have been feeding the tank tropical fish flakes every 2 days or daily if I think it it needs it. Also keeping an eye on water parameters. My amonia levels have been slowly rising and that is the only thing I have been checking throughout the week. Yesterday the levels were around 0.50 - 1.0 and today I checked the amonia and it is 0 - 0.25. Because of this sudden drop I checked nitrite and nitrate levels. Nitrite was around 2.0 - 5.0 while nitrate was about 0.5 - 10. Is this normal for the cycling of the tank? Can I expect the nitrite levels to drop along with amonia, while nitrate stabilises indicating a fully cycled tank? I'm unsure right now so any help would be appreciated!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It appears fairly 'normal'. However, your understanding of the cycle is a bit off.

1- it's challenging to know how much ammonia is being processed daily by the bacteria using food as the source. Using bottled ammonia is much better in that regard.
2- Nitrate never 'stabilizes' in a cycled tank unless it is very heavily planted. Nitrate just continues to rise and rise in a cycled tank. Water changes are needed to lower the nitrate as well as provide fresh water and remove any number of other things in the water that isn't currently understood.

 

[Luke_burrell]

It appears fairly 'normal'. However, your understanding of the cycle is a bit off.

1- it's challenging to know how much ammonia is being processed daily by the bacteria using food as the source. Using bottled ammonia is much better in that regard.
2- Nitrate never 'stabilizes' in a cycled tank unless it is very heavily planted. Nitrate just continues to rise and rise in a cycled tank. Water changes are needed to lower the nitrate as well as provide fresh water and remove any number of other things in the water that isn't currently understood.

Ok that's good to know, thanks for helping me out.