Nitrites Won't Go Up

[powerdyne6]

I was reading a few of the latest topics posted in the beginner section and there was one were this persons nitrites won't go down, now right now mine is the oppiste my nitrites won't go up, they went as high as 0.10ppm and over the past few days they have been at 0.00ppm and I am on day 27 or so of my fishless cycle. Now I believe my tank had started to partially cycle before I began the fishless cycle with ammonia because I had some fish in the tank for a couple of weeks, but I lost a couple and I decided to take them out and rehome them. Now for the first 18 or so days I had been putting ammonia in the tank, the level was at about 7.5ppm constantly, now this might I been where I have made the mistake of stopping the ammonia dosage, I stopped putting in ammonia for about 5 days and of course my ammonia came down to about 2.0ppm or so and this is where my nitrites dropped to 0, do you think that because my nitrites are at 0 I have sufficient bacteria in my tank to kill them, during all of this my nitrates have stayed at about 15 or 20 ppm or so. Now over the past 4 or 5 days I have started to add ammonia again so the level gets up to about 3.5ppm or so, and when I do my tests the level of ammonia has dropped to about 1.0ppm 24 hours later, and then I will add ammonia again and repeat the process.

Now my question is where do you guys/girls think I stand in terms of my cycle and did I screw it up abit by stopping the ammonia dosage??
Any help woul dbe appreciated
Thanks Mike

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you could have done, it seems the cycle has stalled a little.

try doing a decent sized water change (40-50%) then starting again adding ammonia. if you keep a log of what you've added and your results it'll make it easier for us to understand and help you out. don't know if it's just me but i find it a little confusing if someone posts the results into a paragraph as you have done. if someone just gave me a list of dates and the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings for each date i find it much easier

 

[powerdyne6]

you could have done, it seems the cycle has stalled a little.

try doing a decent sized water change (40-50%) then starting again adding ammonia. if you keep a log of what you've added and your results it'll make it easier for us to understand and help you out. don't know if it's just me but i find it a little confusing if someone posts the results into a paragraph as you have done. if someone just gave me a list of dates and the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings for each date i find it much easier

here is the updates to my cycle

day additions PH ammonia nitrite nitrate

19 0 Ounces Ammonia -- 2.5ppm 0.05ppm 15ppm
20 10 Millilitres -- 1.5ppm 0.00ppm 15ppm
21 10 Millilitres -- 1.5ppm 0.00ppm 15ppm
22 10 Millilitres -- 1.5ppm 0.00ppm 15ppm
23 10 Millilitres -- 1.5ppm 0.00ppm 15ppm
24 15 Millilitres -- 1.0ppm 0.00ppm 15ppm
25 20 Millilitres -- 1.0ppm 0.00ppm 20ppm
26 20 Millilitres -- 1.0ppm 0.00ppm 20ppm
27 20 Millilitres -- 1.0ppm 0.00ppm 25ppm
28 10 Millilitres -- 1.0ppm 0.00ppm 25ppm

from day 14 to 19 I added NO ammonia but started again on day 20 and these were the results

where do you guys/girls think I stand??
Thanks Mike

 

[Tessla]

Looks to me like you're cycling, the nitrate increase means that your nitrites are being converted so you've definitely got some of the bacteria in there. If it continues to increase, you should be fine.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

looks kind of like it's stalled, probably cos you didn't add any ammonia for a few days, do a decent sized water change and then start adding your ammonia every day hopefully it'll kick start it.

 

[powerdyne6]

looks kind of like it's stalled, probably cos you didn't add any ammonia for a few days, do a decent sized water change and then start adding your ammonia every day hopefully it'll kick start it.

how much of a water change should I do??
and for reference what should I be doing in the future to prevent this

 

[powerdyne6]

looks kind of like it's stalled, probably cos you didn't add any ammonia for a few days, do a decent sized water change and then start adding your ammonia every day hopefully it'll kick start it.

how much of a water change should I do??
and for reference what should I be doing in the future to prevent this

I just did some tests tonight and the results were as follows
the ammonia was at 0.75ppm
nitrite was at 0.05ppm
nitrate was at 40ppm

last night the nitrate was at 25ppm and it jumped to 40ppm tonight

is this going in the right direction?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup looks like it's started itself again so just keep doing what your doing.

there's nothing you can really do to prevent a cycle stalling, sometimes it just happens however once you've cycled one tank you shouldn't have to cycle again, just shift around your mature filter media if you wanna set up other tanks