My nitrates are finally rising (again)

[Faelrin]

I hope this means my 29 gallon tank will be ready soon. I kind of posted a lot about this when I made my welcome thread if uh anyone's seen that. But basically for those that didn't, after some time my nitrites started rising, so too did my nitrates. But eventually they just hit a spot and never seemed to go higher.

Tested it today and they are finally rising again. I'm going to see where they end up throughout the next week and I'm hoping they keep rising from here. I've been following/relying on the information from the (almost) complete guide to fishless cycling, so I was kind of getting worried since it said they would get really high, and for a while they just sat at a certain point.

I really hope this means that other bacteria group is finally starting to flourish. I'm also wondering if it was because I grabbed one of the decorations out of the other tank and dumped it in as additional seeding material like last week.

Any thoughts? Is my tank almost ready, or finally on the right path now?

 

[FishyBusiness]

What are your ammonia and nitrite levels now? And level for nitrates?

 

[Faelrin]

Okay hopefully I'm not necroing my own thread, but my computer has run into a bit of trouble the last week and was just recently fixed. Unable to respond I just went ahead (on May 24), and did a 80% water change, and then added a pinch of fish flakes.

Wednesday I tested it and the results were (I use test strips so I know my results may be a bit off):
Nitrate: 40 ppm
Nitrite: 3ppm
Ammonia: Anywhere between 0.5 and 3ppm due to the coloring on the strip and going off the colors to compare it to on the container. I really need to get one of those better testing kits for that.

Today I tested it again and the Nitrites were at 0, and the Nitrates were just a tiny bit over 40ppm (the strip was just a tad bit darker, similar to the day I tested it when I made this thread). Ammonia was 0.5 today. I also added a tiny pinch of fish flakes after testing it, although that may not have been necessary, but I just wanted to be sure the bacteria wouldn't starve overnight.