OK, let me attempt to explain what might be going on here, assuming you are seeing lots of ammonia, no nitrite, and some nitrates which weren't there to start with. You already have a small colony present in the tank changing ammonia to nitrite. You also have a very small colony converting nitrite to nitrate. The colony producing the nitrite is still small so it is only converting a small fraction of the ammonia. The nitrite converting colony is converting it as soon as it available, hence you are not getting measureable nitrites but you are seeing nitrates. (Of course there could be nitrates in the tap water as well, i assume you have checked.) This has happened to me before, it's normal. Eventually the colony which is converting ammonia will catch up to the ammonia supply and flood the tank with nitrite, which will be more than the nitrite colony can handle and you'll get a nitrite spike about the same time as the ammonia spike drops.
Is it possible to have 5ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, and have nitrates present?
Do you think that I should do a nitrate test?
I'm going to jump the gun here. If I do have nitrates present, should I cut the dose of ammonia that I'm adding to my water in half, and go on with the process as if it was normal?
Yeh, might as well check for nitrates if you are curious. Don't half your dose until you see a nitrite spike though. It will happen, just wait.
I know (beleive me, i know!) how trying this process can be. But in the end it is worth it. You'll have a huge bacterial bed that can support a full load of fish, so instead of tortuously adding fish 2 at a time for months and having to deal with quarantining them and emergency water changes to keep levels down as the bacterial bed adjusts, you can just add most or even all of the planned fish at once and never have to worry about stressing them with toxic waste products.
Some of you make this a little too complicated i think. I've cycled in this fashion several times and it's really very simple. Add ammonia the 1st day until you get 5ppm. Note the amount. Add that amount every day until you see the nitrites. Nitrites will arrive anywhere between a couple days if you have tons of seed material to several weeks if you are cycling a brand new tank with no seeding. Once you see nitrites, cut the dose in half and continue to add it everyday. Once the nitrites finally drop (again, this could take only a couple days or several weeks) then do water changes until your nitrates are reasonable and get fish. If for some reason you can't get fish right away, continue adding your maintenance dose until you can, don't forget the water changes at the end. If you stick to this recipe, don't modify it, don't do uneeded water changes, don't start over, etc i guarantee it will work.
