Help - Am I Cycled Or Just Having A Mare?

[dant1875]

I'm pretty far (I think) into my fishless cycle & everything was going well until Monday, when my pH crashed . On the (excellent) advice of this forum's members I did a 90% water change which bought everything back into line again. When I did today's tests 12 hours after adding ammonia, ammonia had gone from 5ppm to zero, nitrites had gone from the very high reading I had last night to almost zero, nitrates have shot up to the highest reading on my scale but my pH has lowered from 7.5-8.0 average to 6.0-6.5. I'm assuming that doing a 90% water change 3 days ago should have got rid of most of the nitrates, so with the readings I've had today am I almost cycled? I've just done a 20% water change & the pH has shot back up instantly to around 7.6 thankfully. My KH from the tap is between 6 & 10d, GH is between 8 & 16d & pH is between 7.6 & 8.0, so I know it shouldn't be a water issue with the pH lowering so I can only assume it's down to the high levels of nitrite & nitrate in the tank?
OR................................am I just having a pH meltdown
Please help - my eyes go all puffy when I cry

 

[OldMan47]

With a KH that high, you should not be seeing big rapid pH changes. If those numbers are ppm rather than german degrees, you have no water hardness at all. The ammonia all gets converted to nitrates and it is not one to one. You get much more nitrates in ppm than you had ppm of ammonia so very high readings after a few days of adding 5 ppm is not unexpected. It does seem that you are almost cycled. A day or two more of confirming that the ammonia and nitrite drop is consistent every day and it will be time to start thinking about what you want to stock with.

 

[dant1875]

With a KH that high, you should not be seeing big rapid pH changes. If those numbers are ppm rather than german degrees, you have no water hardness at all. The ammonia all gets converted to nitrates and it is not one to one. You get much more nitrates in ppm than you had ppm of ammonia so very high readings after a few days of adding 5 ppm is not unexpected. It does seem that you are almost cycled. A day or two more of confirming that the ammonia and nitrite drop is consistent every day and it will be time to start thinking about what you want to stock with.

They were German degrees (don't know how to get the degree symbol on my keyboard ). I'm definitely cycled - I raised my ammonia back to 5ppm last night, 3 hours later my nitrites & nitrates were off the chart & 11 hours after adding the ammonia I had zero ammonia & zero nitrites YAYYYYYY . I've posted my stocking ideas - just waiting on a bit of feedback now

 

[OldMan47]

Congratulations. You need to keep up daily dosing until ready to actually add stock. That way you won't lose what you worked so hard to achieve.