Is My Tank Finally Cycled?

[Amunet]

We have a 28 gallon with 4 danios in it to cycle the tank (yes I know... don't shoot me). They've been in there since Jan 2nd. I've been doing water changes every day (usually 10% changes with larger ones here and there), doing daily water tests, etc etc...
2 days ago... this was our readings for nitrite, ammonia, nitrate...

Ammonia- 0-0.25 (our tap has a little bit of ammonia in it)
Nitrite- 2.0
Nitrate 20

Yesterday the readings were

Ammonia- 0-0.25
Nitrite- 0.50
Nitrate- 5.0

Today.... every reading is at 0 (well besides the slight ammonia)..... I just tested the tank not too long ago and there are still no nitrates.. What's going on? I thought that once your tank was cycled, you would always have a nitrate reading.

I did have to take out 2 of the danio yesterday and put them in the hospital tank to treat one for fin rot and one for frayed fins (was like that when we got him). But I wouldn't think that would affect anything, would it?

Other than taking the 2 fish out.. I haven't done anything different. I did a 10% water change yesterday.. and that was it. I didn't do one today b/c well.... according to the readings I didn't have to... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if your getting a reading for ammonia then it's not cycled.

i;d suggest reading this topic about cycling with fish.

I think the problems is actually that you do not have enough fish, 4 danios... then 2 at one point, isn't a lot at all, you need a decent amount of fish to produce a relativley high bioload to get the cycle going.

I think the tank's actually not cycling at all because of the low bio load, regular water changes won't be helping as your just removing ammonia manually. you need to do them when you have a decent amount of fish in there to keep things at a sensible level.

 

[Amunet]

I'm pretty sure it is cycling correctly, b/c for about 2 weeks, give or take a few days... the ammonia was staying at a constant 2.0. It did take a while to actually get ammonia readings when we first got the danios... but when we started to, they did gradually rise.. then the nitrites came and now nitrates.
I've looked at charts that show about how the cycling goes.. and my tank has been following it pretty closely. I only took out 2 of the fish the day before yesterday so I don't see how that would've affected anything.
Not trying to sound like a butthead or anything heh.. just curious why nitrates are low.
I did another nitrate test yesterday and it finally picked up some.. only 5.0. Did another test today and it was still at a 5.0.
Could it b/c staying low now b/c there are only the 2 fish in there? There are 4 stem plants in the tank as well.. would those be keeping the nitrate lvls down? Or would those even matter since it's only 4 of them hehe