Losing Confidence In My Ability To Read Test Results

OK. These are my test results from my cycle this morning.



I think the figures are as follows:
Ammonia - 0.5 (although this actually looked like 0.25 off camera)
Nitrite - 5.0
Nitrate - 40

If these do seem correct, the maths doesn't add up... somehow between yesterdays results and todays, my tank has managed to convert between 0.25 and 0.5 of ammonia into an additional 3ppm of nitrite and another 30ppm of nitrate. That's impossible. Help!

PS. Yesterday results were: NH3 0.5-1.0, NO2 2.0, NO3 10

i would say 0.25 ammonia

The readings during a fish-less will suffer from allot of variables and you will see some crazy readings.
You really shouldn't get to worked up if you think the numbers are not adding up.
Don't drive yourself crazy and read too much into the exact numbers you are seeing.
Just stay the course and aim for the processing of Ammonia and Nitrite compleatly.

It WILL sort itself out soon enough I promise.

^ Agreed!

All that's really important is 'zero', 'low', or 'high'; the exact numbers don't need to worry you that much.