Stalled Tank

Bacteria don't always play by the rules. And nitrate is the most difficult one to measure accurately. Do you shake one of the bottles till your arm nearly falls off?

14 days in is quick for a nitrite spike. It took 28 days for anything to happen after the first dose when I did a fishless cycle earlier this year, then a further 25-ish days for the cycle to complete.

Are you using the API test kit? When nitrite is well off the top of the scale the colour sometimes goes purple immediately then changes to blue during the 5 min stand. Maybe try diluting 1 part tank water with 9 parts tap water and see if the nitrite reading is somewhere on the scale. It doesn't need to be a very accurate dilution as all it is intended for is too see if the nitrite is actually very high.

The seeding is why the cycle has started much faster than mine. I posted last evening just before I turned my laptop off for the night and was in a hurry.

I assume we are talking about cycling the 125 litre tank? I think I'd be inclined to do a water change, as big as you can manage, then test for ammonia half an hour after the new water goes in. Add enough ammonia to take it up to 3 ppm then take it from there, starting at the beginning again.

One thing we can say, it is not because you don't have enough KH. Unless your tap water is very strange, hard alkaline water should have plenty carbonate.

That does sound odd. Though it is possible the earlier readings were the odd ones 

The tank you had the filter squeezings from, can you take some media from that tank? Media holds more bacteria than squeezings.

have had a think now and i did put all the artificial plant and ornaments in,i washed these in tap water before putting in .should i have washed them in dechlorinated water ? I also had the filter off for a few hours while getting plants in but cant see that was a problem, So just a re cap, have now done an 80% water change with dechlorinated water and tested next morning , amonnia zero, nitrite zero ,nitrates 20 ,ph 8.2. I then dosed with 3.75 ml ammonia to give 3ppm,have now tested three days later and ammonia 3ppm nitrite zero.so hopefully this is back on track but just a bit miffed i have lost over two weeks .can anyone tell me how long before i should see ammonia dropping ? I have read about people being stuck at this point with ammonia stuck at 3ppm

ok thanks sue i shall wait it out and follow the three day testing program till i get a drop