Aqua Tom
Fish Gatherer
2 minus 2.5 hours to dose.
I need advice please
I need advice please

Sure you don't have a dead something under the substrate??![]()
You're really patient, you'll be a great fish keeper, i don't think i can stand waiting 50+ days with my fish tank set and waiting for the cycle and harder for me cause my GF is pushing me to buy fish, i try to convince her about the cycle and everything. Congrats on that.
Tom, I've found that you really can't make assumptions about the nitrate in your tap water by measuring nitrate levels in a tank after a massive water change. It's really rather uncanny the way nitrates can hang with a tank through a massive change, they will often still be there despite a really good gravel clean and full change. Part of the reason is that the nitrates will manage to hang with the filter, I believe and then will show back up in the tank water. So for me it's a bit of a rule to just measure tap water directly, for tap stats.
You are really doing fine and are in to the range now where a less than complete initial stocking would probably go fine without mini-spikes. Whatever you do from here on out should just continue to make the filter more mature.
~~waterdrop~~