fishless cycling..

Question
hi,
About three weeks ago I began cycling my 30 gallon tank, without fish. I decided to go with the fish food method, mainly because the ammonia chemical wasn't available anywhere around here. So I added fish food each day, typically a few good shakes that would have been slightly more than I would feed my fish. Now, I didn't exactly test the water everyday. In the past two weeks, I tested it about four times, each reading slightly higher than before, but no where near 8 ppm, and mostly under 1. Then today I conducted a test, and included nitrite in my testing. A nitrite test last week showed 0 ppm. Now, it's at .5 ppm. My ammonia is between 0 ppm and .25 ppm. So, here's my question. Did I miss the ammonia spike by forgetting to test, and is my nitrite going through it's spike now? If so, does that mean I should just continue doing what I am, and that soon, when the nitrite goes down, all will be well and ready? And if not, well, I'd like to know what's going on.

Also, I heard somewhere that once the tank was done cycling, you couldn't siphon the gravel. But using fish food to cycle pretty much means lots of stuff ends up decaying on the bottom. Would it be okay to siphon the gravel?

Thank's so much for your time,
Nina

Answer
Hi Nina
At this point, I would just continue with what you've been doing.  With the nitrites showing up now, it's definitely progressing on.  As soon as both the ammonia and nitrites drop to 0 ppm, and there's nitrates present, then it'll be done, and you could slowly start adding some fish to the tank.  I would only add a few at a time-2 or 3, and give it a week or so and monitor those ammonia and nitrite levels again before adding a few more fish.  Also keep in mind, when it is finished cycling, keep adding that fish food to the tank until you are ready to add the fish.  The beneficial bacteria needs a constant ammonia source to survive.  

As for vacumming the gravel when it's done, well it's definitely going to need it.  Most of the beneficial bacteria is concentrated in the filter media(filter pad, bio balls, etc.), and some is in the gravel and on the decorations.  Just be sure you don't change out the filter pad for awhile.  It'll probably be real dirty as well.  When you're ready to get your fish, I would go ahead and do a good gravel vacuum to get all that food sucked up.  Rinse the filter pad off in the bucket of used tank water and reuse it.  Don't change out the filter pad either for a few months, just continue to rinse it off at least once month.  Then just monitor the water parameter levels after adding the fish.  They should be fine, but if they do show they're slightly off, I don't think it'll last for very long-just like a little mini-cycle.

Good luck with the new set up.

Christy