Cycling question.

[PurplePhoenix]

Hi, it's my first time cycling a tank and I just wanted to check everything is going as it should. I'm about 3 1/2 weeks into a fishless cycle. The tank has some live plants in, but not too heavily planted at present. I had the ammonia spike and then the nitrate spike. The Nitrites have now dropped from 5.0ppm (that's as high as the API test kit goes, so could have been higher) to 0. It's a definite 0. My ammonia however isn't on 0, it's on 0.50ppm. Nitrates are 20ppm. Should I expect a higher spike in nitrates or will the plants be keeping those levels lower? It's the first day nitrites have been 0, so I just wanted to check that ammonia still not being 0 is normal and that nitrates being at that level is normal. The nitrite spike started 10 days ago. PH has dropped from 7.2 to 6.4. I'm still feeding the tank twice a day with a couple of fish food flakes. Could that be why there is still an ammonia reading? Should I stop feeding it? I've not done a water change yet. Should I do that now that nitrites are on 0 or wait until ammonia is on 0 too? The tank is heated at 26°C /78°F. Should I just keep doing what I'm doing and give it a few more days or do I need to do something different now the Nitrobacter are obviously doing their thing?

 

[Barliman]

What you want to see is all the ammonia converted to nitrite and then nitrate within 24 hours. See what your ammonia and nitrite readings are tomorrow and let us know.