My 20g that's been in the nitrite phase seemingly forever finally came down to zero tonight! 
A few days ago I put the prefilter sponge from my cycled tank into the filter basket. The nitrite dropped a little the next day, and tonight it's at zero! But I have some questions:
1) I tested the nitrate and it reads 5.0. The cycling instructions say: "Nitrate should appear soon after nitrite does and will rise steadily until the end of the cycle. It should peak at between 35 and 45 ppm (plus any ppm of nitrate in your tap)." So if mine reads 5.0, what does this mean? Is this not okay? Will it rise?
2) Now that the nitrite is 0, should I immediately do a water change, or wait until I'm ready to stock it? If I can't stock it right away, should I put a few snails in there to keep the cycle going?
A few days ago I put the prefilter sponge from my cycled tank into the filter basket. The nitrite dropped a little the next day, and tonight it's at zero! But I have some questions:
1) I tested the nitrate and it reads 5.0. The cycling instructions say: "Nitrate should appear soon after nitrite does and will rise steadily until the end of the cycle. It should peak at between 35 and 45 ppm (plus any ppm of nitrate in your tap)." So if mine reads 5.0, what does this mean? Is this not okay? Will it rise?
2) Now that the nitrite is 0, should I immediately do a water change, or wait until I'm ready to stock it? If I can't stock it right away, should I put a few snails in there to keep the cycle going?
