Weird water parameters during my fishless cycle?

[FreshObsessed]

Hi guys, new to the forum. So, here's my story, please help

I have a 5.5 Gallon, filtered by an Aqua clear 20 and Heated by a 25 watt heater that I will be using for a Single DP.Of course, I am doing a fishless cycle. Can't find any more ammonia in town so I figured I would go with some fish food. I started my cycle about a week ago. I added flake food and a single algae wafer and left it to decompose. I took some a dirty cup of gravel from my 29 gallon and put it in a pantyhose-like material and dropped it in the tank. And my mom, not very knowledgeable on fish, got me Cycle by Hagen...I didn't tell her it was Basically useless and added it into my tank. Now a few days later the water parameters read: .30-ish ppms Ammonia, .10-ish Nitrite, and 10ppm Nitrate. I'm confused. Never had parameters like this during any of my fishless cycles. What is up with this?

[Byron3991]

Hi, I'm new too! I just completed a cycle and that's how mine looked about a week in and everything looks good in my tank now four days in, hoping everything stays that way. As you may know, it's hard to measure the amount of ammonia from flake food, what I found out is that ACE hardware actually carries ammonia without any soap in it. I used that and one shrimp pellet a week. Pretty sure it's 10% ammonia that's been diluted and called janitorial strength or something. As far as the Hagen cycler goes I don't know anything about it other than the nutrafin cycler I used on my 5 gal and like you said basically worthless. Hope everything cycles well!