What stage of the cycle am I in, and what to do next?

[ppo8820]

Ive been fishless cycling for about 3 weeks now. I dose with ace hardware ammonia, started at 4ppm. It actually sat at that for a long time, but then I went and got a filter bag full of gravel from a fish shop, as well as some live plants.
Now the ammonia goes to like .25/.50 after about 24 hours of adding ammonia up to 2-4ppm. I also have sky high nitrites. On the API MK it shows off the charts purple.
I also noticed some green algae growing on the gravel bag, which concerns me as I hate algae.

I guess my question is, what step am I on and what do I do next to keep this thing going? I added some extra Niteout II tonight and some plant food. The plants seem to be happy as can be.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Coyne]

How to Do a Fishless Cycle: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

"7" is the answer to your question.

 

[ppo8820]

Booya! That means I am almost done! I am never moving or taking this tank down as I never want to cycle from scratch again. I will keep the filter media in a vault. Okay all that is extreme, but you can tell I am excited. Thanks for the reply and info.

 

[PNWaquarist]

Don't keep the media in a vault. It'll dry out.

It's good to have a filter bag full of porous biomedia in your display tank's filter. When you need to cycle a tank, add about 15 pieces to a fresh filter bag and stick it into the filter of the cycling tank. Helps tremendously.

 

[ppo8820]

lol, I was joking. I use aqua-clears and never change the sponge or bio bag. I am excited to finally have my own seeding material for any tanks I get going forward, so I dont have to start from scratch again. Thanks everyone!