Nitrite and Nitrate after 3 days in the cycle?

I setup the tank on Saturday. During that, I added a bag of Juwel Bio Boost which came with the filter:

I measured the values of my tank every day and on Sat, and Sunday there was no ammonia, no NO2 and NO3 was at 1 which I assume came with the water.
Monday I added ammonia for food for the bacteria. An hour after I added the ammonia I measured the water:
NH4: 5, NO2: 0.1, NO3: 1
After I took the parameters, I added the quickstart which was provided by the LFS: sera bio nitrivec | sera

Today I took the parameters and I got these:
NH4: 5, NO2: 0.4, NO3: 5

Ph, Kh and Gh all remain the same since sat: Ph: 7.8, Kh: 7, Gh: 9

I was under the impression that the first NO2 spike should happen maybe after a week or so.
And NO3 a week or so after the first NO2 spike.
So the parameters I see don't make much sense.

Will these "accelerators" contain both bacteria that break down NH4 into NO2 and bacteria that brakes down NO2 into NO3? Could that explain the values?

If it's all reasonable that this happens, when will I know that the cycle is complete? If NH4 and NO2 is both a 0?
If that happens, do I need to add a small amount of ammonia to see if it disappears within a few hours to see that it doesn't leave NO2 behind?

 

A cycled tank will have zero readings of ammonia and nitrites and usually a trace of nitrates.. be sure to test your source water to make sure u know what’s going into the tank.

 

your assumtion in your last paragraph is correct. when the NH4 and NO2are both at 0 and the NO3 is climbing. After that I would add enough ammonia to get the tank to 2 ppm, and if that disappears within 24 hours your golden!

 

ok great. So that's to understand when the tank is cycled.
But what about my current values? Tank is only 3 days old. Is that the magic of the accelerators? I always read these don't work as good as they describe so that's why I'm a bit confused with what I see in my tank.

 

I wouldn’t entirely trust your readings yet. Even with the BB added in, there is no way it is fully cycled in three days. Like others have said. You are for sure cycled when your readings are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate and a trace of nitrates consistently for a few days with just nitrates rising. Another good indicator that J Macgregor mentioned is when you can see your tank is processing the ammonia

 

Yes I understand. I didn't say the tank was cycled. I know it nees 0 ammonia for that.
I am however, surprised that I see both NO2 and NO3 readings increase on the same day. I thought it would need at least a few days for the NO3 to appear.

That's why I created the post.. to understand what's happening.

 

There are some additives that will distort the testing parameters. Not sure if yours fall into that category. Your tank is just starting, I would not worry too much about the results just yet as TWiG87 says. Right now watch your ammonia to make sure it stays elevated to feed the cycle. You'll know the cycle is processing and getting close to finishing when nitrites spike high and then start going down.

 

ok great thanks.
I'll continue doing daily parameters tests and watch for the spike.

I somehow feel like I become a first time dad all over again. When we had our first child, we had plenty of questions and were doubting everything we were doing.
Same for the aquarium now

 

Another thing. It's often best to allow 2 hours to pass before testing water parameters after adding substances or performing a water change. This is to allow everything to get a level mix withing the water stream.

 

It is possible that these numbers are coming from the bottled bacteria you added. Some of them do work fairly quick but more often than not it still takes several weeks to complete the cycle even when adding bottled bacteria.

Others have already let you know how you will know when your cycle is complete. Just continue adding ammonia each time it gets down to or close to zero and your cycle will grow.