Fishless Cycling - 2.0 nitrite in 5 days? and Other Cycling Questions

[AlexSmargle]

Hello everyone!
I started cycling my 10g tank on the 1st of June (that's when I dosed the ammonia up to 4ppm), this morning it was at 1ppm so I (attempted) dosing it back up again to 4ppm (I have shaky hands and added too much ammonia. I'm changing water to bring it down now but doing so in small portions because I don't want to take it down too far and have to open the stinky ammonia again.
I tested the nitrItes today too because the guide put together by eco23 said once the ammonia starts dropping to start testing for nitrites. It also said its normal to have a gap between ammonia dropping starting and starting to get nitrites registering. Its only been five days so I didn't expect much but I tested anyway and it says 2.0ish ppm . (Ish because I'm not great at distinguishing shades of colour, I've been using the google play app AquariumNote to keep track of things and it has a cool tool that lets you use your camera to check the colours so I've been using that tool as a double check).
Is that a thing? Can it already have 2.0ish ppm in five days?
How do you all measure your ammonia out? How do you figure out how much you need to dose it up again? Why is there no post icon that seems tentatively excited?

 

[Thrills22]

I use a test tube others use the measuring cap that comes with water conditioners. My advice would be to turn the filter off and anything else that causes water movement and add 2.5ml then test in 5-10 minutes to see what the ammonia ppm is. I don't think you'll need more than 2.5

And good luck. Cycling can seem really arduous but being able to stock what you want (within reason) is really worth it.

 

[AlexSmargle]

Another update because I still feel like this is going shockingly fast.
Nine days into the cycling, I'm dropping from 4ppm to 0.25ppm of ammonia in about two days. I have 5ppm of both nitrites and nitrates now.

 

[chykityta]

I think that a common time ratio is 1:2 as in whatever time it takes you to get Nitrites, then it takes double that time to convert them and or complete the cycle. You are more likely going to be done in about 3 weeks.


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