New tank syndrome?

[veggievettech]

I happened to be home all day today, so I did two 50%+ water changes.
My ammonia is currently testing zero. My ammonia levels before the water changes are getting lower and lower. (yay!) The test also says that nitrates are present. no nitrItes though...
I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on and cross my fingers!

 

[jim692]

The test also says that nitrates are present. no nitrItes though...

Test your tap water your nitrAte reading probably is the same your tap water reading. My tap water reads 10ppm from the faucet.

Normal chain of events is : ammonia--> nitrIte --> nitrAte --> cycled!
You don't want the ammonia or nitrIte to go over .50 ppm if you can help it, when cycling with fish.

When cycling my tank, I tested daily for ammonia and nitrItes. The scale of the test kit I was using was 0ppm, 0.25ppm, 0.50ppm, 1.00ppm, etc. So I and did a 50% PWC when either reading hit .25 ppm to make sure I did not exceed the 0.50ppm level. This allowed for some error by the kit and the tester. (me, lol.) I had 2 spikes where the readings went from 0.0ppm to 0.50ppm within 24 hours.(probably due to error range mentioned above)
I had to do daily water changes at first. Then every 2 days for a while, then 3, then 4. The last PWC was 6 days apart. Then the tank was cycled. Kept testing for a week after the 0.00ppm reading in case of a bounce.
Total time to cycle with fish and no seed material was 42 days for me. I believe this is a fairly average time span.