Cycle is driving me crazy

[Crazyhermitcrab]

I have been doing a cycle on my tank for about a week now. there are 4 female bettas in the tank.
My readings for the first few days were as follows

Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm

Ammonia: 1ppm

Ammonia: 0.50ppm

Ammonia: 0.50ppm

Ammonia: 0.25ppm

No nitrite or nitrate was showing up, so i stopped testing for a few days. today after a 15% water change... this was the result:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 5ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

I dont understand, I thought if there was nitrates that meant it was cycled... how do i have nitrites and nitrates???
How do i get the nitrites to go away?
how do i get the nitrates down?

if it helps i am cycling with established media.
When can i add my fish?

 

[The Trooper]

You don't have enough BB to deal with the nitrites yet, this will grow in time, keep up with the water changes and try to get the nitrites as low as possible.

 

[fishybuisness]

Just because here are nitrates doesn't mean its cycled! Ammonia -nitrites - nitrates it how the cycle goes. Once your ammonia and nitrites are at 0 then you are cycled

 

[threnjen]

You didn't show nitrites for several days because you were just building high ammonia levels.

It takes several days for ammonia-eating bacteria to show up in a tank. They eat the ammonia, and produce nitrites.
Then - it takes several days AGAIN for the nitrite-eating bacteria to show up.. They also grow slower than the ammonia eating bacteria. They eat the nitrites and produce nitrates.

The rule is not if there are nitrates at all. There are some nitrIte-eating bacteria in there, converting to nitrAtes. But there are not yet enough nitrIte eating bacteria to convert ALL of the nitrIte to nitrAtes. They will continue to grow until eventually there is enough to handle the entire load of nitrItes, and at that point you will cease to see the nitrItes.

nitrItes will only be removed by the cycle completing. However they cannot get so high or it is dangerous to your fish. You will probably need to 50% water change every day to keep these levels down and not dangerous to your bettas.

nitrAte is the end product of the whole cycle. It is removed through your maintenance weekly water change, once your tank is cycled.

I am a bit confused because you said there are 4 bettas in the tank, then asked when you can add your fish?