Yeti,
I know where you are at with this tank.Trust me.Been there and done it without having a clue what I was getting into...then I found these forums and things got complicated.Pretty steep learning curve indeed...esp when you have fish swimming around.
I went back and read every post in this thread.If you got to a spot where it was "time to add fish" I missed it.I saw where you asked and I saw you got an answer,but I would have said no.
Some of your numbers suggested that your cycle was getting there,perhaps even halfway there,but nothing complete what so ever imo.
Whats curious to me is the now absent nitrite and nitrate.Not sure whats going on there without knowing every detail of how you have handled things thus far.
As far as the advice you are getting from myself and a few others adhere to it.Simply put, we "know" because we've done it.We learned it and we asked and we screwed up and we asked ect ect ect...
Now I'm just going to be straight foward here but please don't think I'm being mean or a jerk.
well all of my fish seem happy so i wouldn't say it wasn't a success
How your fish "seem" is ZERO indication of the condition of the tank/water and your status cycle wise.
and .5 is unreachable.. even if I do 75%, vac the gravel and everything it seems to ALWAYS be at 1.0....
.5
IS reachable...and sustainable... period.What you need to do is get some tap water,declorinate it and run the ammonia test on it.Let that be you baseline for zero.If you are at 1ppm and you change 50% it should move to .5....it really is that simple.
It is possible you have faulty kit as well.
I don't plan to add any others for a bit anyway
If you add more fish before you know the cycle is complete you are shooting yourself in the foot.Based on your most recent numbers I can't agree this is a success as of right now.Not saying it can't or won't be...just saying its not there yet.
I'm also going to point out three things that you have either ignored or misunderstood.These things are important until you test at positive for ammonia then 0,positive for nitrites and then 0,and finally positive for nothing but nitrates.Your results when cycled sould be 0/0/10 or 20 or so...
1.NO MORE FISH (did I mention that one already?)
2.No deep gravel vacs..lightly sweep the top to remove solids.
3.DO NOT remove clean or otherwise disturb the filter.
Number 1 will keep this as managable as possible.
2 and 3 are about letting the bacteria populate so the water will eventually test nothing but nitrates.
Anyhow,like I said...I'm not trying to be a jerk.I'm just being blunt and trying to help.This a great hobby and you found the worlds best web site for help imo.These guys know this stuff hands down and will help eveytime they can.
Can you post some updated results?I'm curiuos as to what all the numbers are....
Take care and best of luck,
Fatz