Am I Cycling Please

Some questions first as my memory isn't what it was.

Do you have any live plants in the tank?
What is the nitrate measurement, and the nitrate measurement of your tap water? [If you have a liquid nitrate tester, don't forget to shake the bottle the instructions say till your arm falls off!]

The test I want is nirtAte not nitrite. There is usually some in tapwater, even mine which is very low. It is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate. If there are any nitrite eating bacteria in the tank they will turn nitrite into nitrate and the nitrate level will build up. But you have to subtract the tap nitrate from the tank nitrate to see if any nitrate is being made by bacteria. Nitrate is the one that goes up in whole numbers not 0.something. The API liquid tester goes up 0, 5, 10, 20, 40 etc. If the tester measures something like 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 etc, that is nitrite.

Plants prefer ammonia as food. In a heavily planted tank, the plants will remove the ammonia before the bacteria get a look in. In these tanks, nitrite is not formed, and nitrate is usually lower than tapwater as none is being made and the plants use the nitrate that comes from the tap. In your sized tank, it is possible the plants are taking up the ammonia. This is why I asked for the nitrate reading, if that isn't being formed the ammonia must be going somewhere else, the only obvious place is into the plants.

That 'official standard' is just the maximum allowed by law. In theory, they should also give the level in the water, usually a max, a min and a mean value. They are supposed to test several times a year.

Have you been using this page? I have tried using a few shops in in Essex/Sussex but all I get is 'sorry there has been a problem' . If you haven't used this page, try entering your postcode and see if you get anything.
Hmmmm, the website looks identical to Northumbrian Water's and that too gives the 'sorry there has been a problem' when I enter my postcode. So those websites look like a non-starter.

Is that 10mg on your tester the tap or the tank?

You do need them both for nitrate as you have to subtract the tap level from the tank level.

The overall tank level is minus 15!

The fact that your ammonia is disappearing, you don't have any nitrite worth speaking of, and the tank nitrate is quite a bit lower than the tap nitrate does suggest to me that your plants are removing the ammonia rather than filter bacteria. This is not a bad thing.

To summarise:
There are two species of filter bacteria, one uses ammonia as food and turns it into nitrite as their waste product, the other uses nitrite as food and turns it into nitrate as their waste product. There are no bacteria in aquaria that use nitrate as food so we have to remove it with water changes. When cycling, with fish or without, there are virtually no ammonia eaters to remove the ammonia for a few weeks, then the very few that have escaped being poisoned by the water company multiply so that there are enough of them to remove the ammonia. As they do this, the level of nitrite increases until the very few nitrite eaters in the water multiply enough to remove it and turn it into nitrate.
Plants prefer ammonia as food. They will use nitrate in the absence of ammonia. Plants do not use nitrite. In a planted tank, whether the ammonia comes from the fish or a bottle, the plants will use the ammonia as food. They do not turn it into nitrite so there is no nitrite to turn into nitrate. The plants will also use any nitrate that comes with the tap water.

Plants can be used in conjunction with the filter to keep a tank free from ammonia and nitrite. The only danger comes if the plants suddenly start to die. If there are no longer any plants to remove the ammonia the level of ammonia will rise until the few bacteria in the filter have grown enough to take over. There might possibly be no nitrite in the water if the growth of the two bacteria species keep pace with each other.
And plants do have another trick if they come from a tank that has fish in it - there will be bacteria on the plants which will help seed the filter.

What you need to do now is add another 3ppm dose of ammonia and test tommorow. If then you have double zeros, the cycle has finished. If you don't have double zeros, if they are amm below 0.25 and nit below 1.0, add another 3ppm dose of ammonia and test after another 24 hours. If tomorrow they are above 0.25 and 1.0, wait till next day and test again, thn see what the results are.

Hello again, saviours of my sanity!!
Saturday AMMONIA was 2.0 so added around 1.0 to bring it up to around 3
              NITRITE        0.25

Sunday tested again as advised and AMMONIA appeared to be 2.0
                                                     NITRITE   appeared to be between 0.5-1.5 (difficult to tell)
                                                     Didn't add anything

Today, Monday 19th I have tested with new JBL strips (ran out of nitrite tests and this was all I could get in a hurry.

                                                     NITRITE  appears as 10  (off the scale according to the other kit)
                                                     NITRATE appears as 100 (maximum showing on the other kit)
                                                     GH         21
                                                     KH         10
                                                     PH          7.5 - 8
                                                     CL          0 ( which is should be with Tapsafe)     

Today used Original Ammonia test kit shows result as   2 so no movement downwards on ammonia?

I can feel a sacrificial fish coming on !!

Where am I going wrong please !!!!!!

Thanks Sue. I'll have a go tomorrow.
I do actually have some liquid nitrite test on order and it should be here by Wednesday hopefully.

You definitely need a degree in science to do this flipping lark!

        

ME   

So the actual tank nitrite is something like 10 to 25 so it could be over 15, the danger point.

I would err on the side of caution and empty the tank. It will be OK to leave the tiny bit of water in the gravel, that won't do any harm. The bacteria you have grown won't be affected provided you remember to dechlorinate the water and I would also warm the water before adding it - it doesn't need to be at the cycling temp, adding it at around 15 deg as the tank is now down to that. Cold water straight from the tap is very cold at the moment so it would take a while to warm up.

Then add a dose of ammonia. You will still have the ammonia eaters and they should get to work straight away turning the added ammonia into nitrite. If you have some nitrite eaters, they can get to work as soon as the ammonia eaters make nitrite. And neither will be inhibited by high nitrite.

UPDATE:
20th Jan emptied tank completely, bare trace of ammonia left
Filled with new dechlorinated water.
Put in ammonia 3pp

21st Jan
Ammonia    still 3
Nitrite             5
Nitrate           50?

23rd Jan (today)
Ammonia    slightly less than 2
Nitrite         between 0 - .25
Nitrate        between 25 - 50

It looks to me as if it's moving in the right direction?

Please tell me I'm right !!!!