Question: Cycling

[dryopteris]

Hi!
I have a 90 liter ( about 24 gallon) tank that has been cycling for two weeks, and I have a couple of questions.
first some info:
There are no animals in the tank, only plants (added about a week ago). As ammonia source I used fishflakes, which didn't work very well. The tank got very cloudy and ammonia levels where at 8 ppm for a couple of days. I got the ammonia level down with water changes and I haven't added any more fish flakes or any other source of ammonia since.
parameter at the moment: ammonia 4ppm, nitrites 5ppm, nitrates between 0 and 5 ppm, pH 7,8. Water is quite clear now.

So my questions are: isn't the ammonia supposed to drop before nitrate levels rise? I it might be because ammonia was around 8 ppm for a few days, but could it be somethiing else?
Should I do anything about the ammonia level or just wait untill it is converted into nitrite? Will the plants suffer from the ammonia level?

The tank is for one axolotl, so even if the cycle doesn't crash at first, will it eventually crash due the lack of waste produced?
Also if I decide to get another axoltl in the future, will the bacteria be able to handle double the waste?

Any tips in general are very welcome! Thanks in advance.

 

[layna]

If your doing a fishless cyle you dont need to do any water changes, you want to keep your ammonia at around 4/5ppm until the nitrites and nitrAtes start showing.

Then when you can add 4ppm of ammonia to the tank and both the ammonia and nitrite drop to 0ppm within 24 hours you can do a water change to reduce the nitrAte and add your axies

Essentially dont do any water changes and keep your ammonia at 4ppm until your adding more ammonia daily, then do a 90% water change and add your axie.

 

[Xtophr]

Here are some links on cycling:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-beginner-newt-salamander-axolotl-help-topics/f48-axolotls-ambystoma-mexicanum/f59-axolotl-tank-set-ups-filters-substrate/99480-cycling-tank-help-general-questions.html#post429428