Cycling nitrites not going down

[lefti]

Hi All,
I am cycling my 55 gal fishless. I have gotten to the point where I get my ammonia<1 ppm. I dose it back up to about 4ppm. The nitrites are not going down however. I did a partial water change a few days ago. When I put ammo in the aquarium to 4ppm it goes down to < 1ppm in less then 12 hrs. I used some filters from a 5 gallon I have to seed bacteria. I also put some gravel from the 5 gallon in a net and placed it in the 55 gallon. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all.

Lefti

 

[bud29]

How long has this been happening? The typical nitrite>nitrate conversion takes more than three weeks when cycling your tank. Even with some bacteria in a bottle, my nitirite>nitrate conversion still took about 2 weeks. So this is probably one of the terrible times when you can just sit there and wait it out. If the nitrites get so high they are off the charts, do a 50% water change to get them to a readable level.