cycle opinions

I'm 14 days into cycling now and I'm looking for suggestions. I have a 20L tank started with new sand and dry rock. I decided to cycle using plain additive free ammonia, I got my ammonia up to about 8ppm and over the course of the first week it spiked and has came back down to 0 now my nitrites have been peaking for about of week at 5ppm+ high as my test goes. I am testing between 10-20ppm on nitrates and it seems to be gradually going up. I'm not running lights during cycle and temperture has been set on 78 thru today during it. Should I be concerned that nitrites are that high and have caused my cycle to stall or should I just let it ride out. I have bumped up my temp to 85 to assist in bacteria growth. I'm not being impatient I just want to make sure this is going on the correct track it should. I'm not running any type of media in tank and have not used any additives in it. Advice is apprectiated.

Thanks

 

If ya wanna speed it up and add some good stuff, try Dr. tims one and only or microbelift! Prob a good idea to get anyways and periodically add to help boost your system!

But a cycle as your doing should take 4-6 weeks anyways! Maybe add a pinch of fish food every now and then!

 

I wouldn't be concerned at all. The bacteria that deal with nitrite are slower then the bacteria that deal with ammonia. Nitrates will also throw off the accuracy of your nitrite reading a bit.

When my nitrites finally spiked, they were over 5.0 ppm for over a week and then took another week or so to finally drop back down to 0.

 

also should I periodically add in small amount of ammonia to keep the bacteria that converts ammonia fed?

 

If the only source of ammonia was from what you added in the beginning, I would. That bacteria still needs a food source.

I never did, but I started my cycle by adding a piece of LR to my tank and the die off from that kept my bacteria fed.