A couple months ago i had switched my substrate and it threw my tank all off and it started the nitro cycle pretty much all over again. After a month and a half, not a **** thing was happening. I decided to nix the filter cartridges and made my own filter media. I used the imagitarium filter sponge(cut to fit the size of the filter), then a good layer of imagitarium filter fiber, topped with a mesh bag with Fluval biomax. Within days, the cycle finally started to progress. During the process, i was doing water changes and treating the water appropriately, and managed to only lose 1 fish in the process. Issue im having now, is the parameters are confusing me and im not sure what to do. PH is 6.6, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, but the ammonia is whats confusing me. After the ammonia spiked and started coming down, its gotten to .25ppm and is staying there. Nitrite spiked at about 2.0ppm, and came down to 0ppm within 5 or 6 days. But i cant seem to get the ammonia to completely disappear. Fish are all healthy and color is the brightest theyve ever been, but i dont want to expose them to any of this anymore, they deserve better!!! Tank is a 29gallon. Currently running an Aqueon quietflow 30 with the home made filter media. Stock is 10 Tiger Barbs(5 regular, 1 albino, 3 green, and 1 purple globarb), 12 Neon Tetras, and 4 Peppered Cory's