fishless cycle questions

[livewyr25]

Just started up a new 29 gallon Fw want, decided this time to do it fishless by adding ammonia and i added some gravel from my established tank into the media container of the new emperor biowheel filter. adding enough ammonia to get it to around 5 ppm, the next day, ammonia reads 0 ppm. but now im getting both off the meter nitrAte and nitrIte readings. what should i do? continue adding ammonia? water changes? thanks in advance for your guys help!!!! appreciate every bit of it!

 

[OrionGirl]

Keep adding ammonia--you have the bacteria colony for eating ammonia established, but need to give the nitrite consumers time to develop. If you quit feeding the ammonia consumers, they'll die off.

Once the nitrites go to 0, you can do a large water change to reduce the nitrates to an acceptable range (especially if you're not planting the tank), and then stock.