Cycling Tank Seems To Be Going Quickly

[lon1000]

Hi,
well this is what i did.. 55 gallon tank, filled it with water added declorination chemical, got lots of plants and started fishless cycling.

Day 1: Added 4ml amonia
Nitirite 0
Nitrate 0
Amonia 2 ppm
ph 7.4-7.6

Day 2:
Amonia 2 ppm

Day 3: Realised i hadn't added enough amonia so added another 4ml
Amonia 4 ppm

Day 4:
Amonia 4ppm

Day 5:
Nitrite 0

Day 6: Plants weren't doing so well, so added some Leaf zone, could this mess up my cycling?
Nitrite 0.5
Amonia 4 ppm

Day 7:
Nitrite 5
Nitrate 7.5
Amonia 2

Does seem like the tank is cycling.. obviously not there yet.. but does seem to have gone very quickly.. Want to see tomorrow if the amonia has definately dropped or if its just me reading the test wrong.. or is it the leaf zone making my stats go wrong? it doesn't look like its got anything in it that could do this..

any ideas? i didn't start with any mature media or anything.. but i did have alot of plants..

Thanks
Chris

 

[Dark Wolf]

It doesn't seem to be going exceptionally fast to me, maybe slightly faster than others. After a week your ammonia has dropped, but not yet hit 0. Remember to top it back up to around 4ppm when it does. Now you have to wait for your nitrites to drop, which might seem like forever...

 

[lon1000]

hi,
yeah i guess so.. in fact i put one too many days in there.. only had it running 6 days..

ok cool.. well looks like its going ok then..

good good.. was just surprised to see the nitrates increasing.. i rechecked the water out the tap and thats 0, so something has created it..

ah well. i'll keep monitoring it and topping up the amonia..

thanks
chris