55gal Mystery Tank

hello everyone was curious to pick everyones brains I have 55gal tank with 2 marineland 350 cans ready to go but haven't put them on yet a ug filter set with lava rock as a base then smaller river rock for a natural look and hob emperor yet to be put on I started it 3months ago with 5 guppies watched quality 3x a week for all three months new apI master kit and some strips just to make sure never hurts to check water from tap 0.0.0 ch 80 gh well over 180 tank almost the same with a slight tint in nitrites so lets say .5 (0/0/.5) same hardness its a planted tank and guppies so hardness is great but why no spike ive never been able to see and ppm rise the plants ( java fern and bacopa) are taking off the guppies have like 50+ fry plenty of algae blooms I have to take care of prob because I just put brine shrimp in without straining also sorry ph is 8.5 no fluctuations prob because of hardness I have had this dbl checked at 3 lfs when am I supposed to get spikes??? am I cycled???

 

Your cycling is done when you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and a reading of nitrates. Looks like you are on your way but I guess you have 0 Ammonia, 0.5 Nitrites, 0 Nitrates if I'm reading that properly? So you have the AM to NI converting bacteria but still building NI to NA bacteria, shouldn't take too long for that but it varies from tank to tank.

 

should I leave it alone any longer I was just kinda curious if I should wc at all or just when levels start rising above the limits

 

I would just do normal weekly maintenance water changes, probably even as low as 10% is fine for now as your fish load is small. Guppies should be fine for a while at 0.5 nitrates, they are pretty hardy. You do need to keep some level of nitrites there to complete the cycle and 0.5 is very reasonable. I just wouldn't make any other changes until it's done like adding more fish. You have a very good setup for guppies, 55 gallon is large and the two canister filters you have will provide excellent filtration. As long as all those guppy fry aren't staying permanently haha. Your cycle might take longer than normal though because of the large tank and small fish load.

 

I should probably add... if the Nitrite levels do go up to 1ppm then I would do a larger water change to try and keep it below that.