My fish tank isn't cycling please help!

[parznips]

my tank is not cycling my tank as now been up and running about 9 weeks i am doing a fish in cycle i have 9 neon tetras 2 black mollies and 2 dwarf gouramis i have read every thing about the nitrogen cycle but nothing is happening my readings tonight are.
ammonia - 0.25
nitrites - 0
nitrates - 0
p.h - 7.4

my ammonia as never got above 0.5 it hardly ever gets above 0.25 i did a 20% water change 8 days ago and i test the water every day but my reading just never change surely they is something going wrong somewhere.

this is what tank i have got and what i did from the start.

hi everyone this is my first post i am new to fish keeping and my tank doesn't seem to be cycling iv got a juwel rio 300 with a all pond solutions 1400ef external filter.

i started my cycle of with the tetra safe start i followed the instructions from what tetra told me i added 9 neon tetras 1 hour later after adding the tetra safe start left it 2 weeks testing the water daily after 2 weeks all my readings were 0 i did a 20% water change and i added another dose of tetra safestart because i was going on holiday for a week 3 days later and i didnt want any sudden spikes when i was away its now been 2 weeks since the second dose and my readings are 0.25 Ammonia 0 nitrate and 0 nitrite.

in my tank now i have 9 neon tetras 2 black mollies and 2 gouramis i am just confused because nothing seems to be happening with the cycle i am monitoring the water at least once a day most of the time twice because i dont want to lose any fish.

also when i got back of holiday i cleaned the gravel and the tank because the timer on the lights didnt work right so they was on 24 hrs a day for 7 days which caused loads of algae.

if any one could help me it would be great
thanks Adam

 

[librarygirl]

Hm, what test kit are you using? If it's strips they can be inaccurate. Also you're treating the water with dechlorinator prior to putting it into the tank, yes? What kind are you using?

 

[Amicus]

Hm, what test kit are you using? If it's strips they can be inaccurate. Also you're treating the water with dechlorinator prior to putting it into the tank, yes? What kind are you using?

Yes, I agree that the test kit is important. For example, if you are using the API test kit it can be tough to distinguish the colors from what is in the test tube.
Are you cleaning the filter? If so how are you cleaning it and with what? I wouldn't worry too much about over-cleaning the gravel, in fact you don't want to clean all of it at once. It sounds to me like your tank is cycled, maybe cut back on feeding, over feeding can lead to ammonia spikes. Is the water still cloudy?
It sounds to me like it may be ammonia spikes.