Question: Cycling Advice?

[oatmeal]

Hello, everyone! I know this is a topic that has been talked about a lot, but this is my first time cycling a tank and could really use some input.
We set the tank up on October 10th, and added live plants and substrate on the 11th.
My questions is this: I've never seen a nitrite spike, but my nitrates are currently sitting at around 40ppm, and the ammonia does slowly go down over a period of several days. My PH/GH/KH and temperatures have all been within normal range, and we are using frozen dead prawns as an ammonia source.
Looking at my recorded readings, it looks like the nitrates began going up the day after we added nutrifin cycle (I know this is a bit of a controversial product, but I wanted to give it a try). Here's what I have for readings and a bit about our setup:

My tank is 35 gallons, running a tetra whisper filter, and we have an air stone running. The substrate is aquaflora substrate for plants covered in river rocks. The water was boiled and allowed to sit for 24 hrs to dechlorinate prior to setting everything up.

Oct 13/14: Added prawn
Oct 14/14: Ammonia 0.25 NitrItes 0 NitrAtes 0
Oct 15/14: Added Cycle product
Oct 16/14: Ammonia 0.5 NitrItes 0 NitrAtes 20ppm [removed prawn]
Oct 17/14: Ammonia 0.25 NitrItes 0.5 NitrAtes 40
Oct 18/14: Added Prawn back to tank
Oct 19/14: Ammonia 0.5 NitrItes 0 Nitrates 40
Oct 20/14: Ammonia 1.0 NitrItes 0 Nitrates 40
Oct 21/14: Ammonia 1.0 NitrItes 0 Nitrates 40 [removed prawn]
Oct 22/14: Ammonia 1.0 NitrItes 0 Nitrates 40
Oct 23/14: Ammonia 0.5-1.0 NitrItes 0.5 [hard to tell] NitrAtes 40


Should I be allowing my ammonia levels to rise higher than this? It feels wrong to leave a dead prawn in there for too long, and I couldn't find any pure ammonia. Does someone with more experience have any advice on what I could be doing better? I realize this is a long process, I just don't want to delay it further if there's something I'm doing wrong!
Oh! And we are cycling in preparation for CFB or JFB newts

EDIT: I didn't have access to an established aquarium for seeding material. I don't trust pet stores (no matter how good they are, I'm too paranoid), and have no friend with fishies and amphibians!

 

[Chinadog]

I hate cycling tanks, no two ever seem to cycle in the same way or the same time frame!
As I see it, if you're not adding nitrate along with the water you use, it must be coming from the nitrogen cycle. Also the ammonia reading would just creep up over time instead of falling if there was nothing removing it, so I would say the tank is cycled. I don't have any experience with products that claim to speed up the process, so I'm not sure how they affect your readings, but maybe that's why you never saw a nitrite reading?

 

[oatmeal]

Thank you! That makes me feel a bit better. I tested again today and nitrites have all of a sudden appeared (I have a reading of 1 and ammonia is dropping and nitrates look like they're going up). I guess I posted too soon lol! I'll let it go for another week and see where I'm at. The nitrates showing up so early really threw me off though. I wonder if that has something to do with the cycle product.

 

[randok]

Fishless cycling can take a while. The last time I had to cycle my tank I happened to find a bottle of Janitorial Strength Ammonia (10% ammonium hydroxide) at an Ace Hardware store. I seem to remember it taking about 3-4 weeks.

Some guides on fishless cycling suggest bringing the ammonia level up to 3 ppm, so you may want to leave the shrimp in for longer than you have been. Here's a guide that explains basically what I did:

A Quick Guide to Fishless Cycling | DrTim's Aquatics

The tank is cycled when it can remove 3 ppm of ammonia and any nitrite in the tank to 0 within a 24 hour period.

I hope this helps! Unfortunately I think you still may have a ways to go.

 

[oatmeal]

Yeah, I think because newts create so much ammonia, I might just wait a little bit more. I just had some nitrites pop up, and my ammonia is zero, so I added more prawn and we'll see what happens. I just want to make sure these newts are going to a happy home!
I had newts when I was a kid (15+ years ago) and did it ALL wrong! I remember I got a book on keeping newts, but I think newt husbandry has come a long way... the book told us to clean the entire tank at least monthly and change the filter regularly! Yikes! I remember taking the newts out, scrubbing the tank and substrate thoroughly (with bleach!!!), and putting the newts back in Knowing what I know now, I'm so surprised that they lived for 2 years! I still have guilt about that. Now that I think about it, they did spend a lot of time outside of the water, which is out of character for mature chinese fire bellies. I told my mother I'm planning on getting newts again, and explained all the things we were doing wrong and she was horrified and also felt terrible!
Here's hoping this time goes better! I certainly have better resources at my disposal This forum is amazing!