Ammonia Ppm Doesn't Change With Water Change

so I am cycling (there a Betta and I know...) and a parculair thing I noticed during a 50% water change when ammonia was at .5ppm was that my ammonia doesn't go down, but it climbs every 3 days. So I had a nitrite just 4 days ago, but it is climbing 2x a day. so I am doing a 50% water change every day. I test the water an hour later and my nitrite is cut in half but my ammonia doesn't change. I am stumped and need some help if anything wrong is going on.

ammonia now at 1ppm
API master test kit
no ammonia or chloramine in tap. I tested 1 hour after dechlorination
ph around 8

 

Change 90% of the water, wait, retest. Changing the water will lower the parameters, UNLESS you're doing the reading wrong/getting incorrect results, have a huge bioload that's constantly producing ammonia, overfeeding, have a ton of dying plants, have ammonia in the source water, etc.

 

Welcome to FishLore! I hope you find the site helpful

 

I would use Tetra safe start plus when you are fish in cycling the tank. it has bacteria that will convert the ammonia and nitrites. many people here had success with it and myself as well. dump the whole bottle in and do do any water changes for 2 weeks unless u see fish stressed out. your tank should cycle by then

 

what size is the tank?

what else is in the tank besides the betta?

how much are you feeding?

 

it a 10 gallon just a Betta. in the beginning it was 15 pellets for like 5 days. but that was cause there was a communication error. point is we overfed, but I bought it down to 6 pellets a day. changed the water after realizing overfeeding was happening and took control of sole feeding.

 

weird. all I can recommend is to keep doing water changes.

what water conditioner are you using? there's a few that can detox ammonia for up to 48hrs like Seachem Prime.

 

I using nutrfin aqua plus. Prime is what I be switching to once this bottle is done. didn't know that water conditioner can lock away ammonia before I bought nutrafin.