Seeking insights on my cycle readings (if any)

[ButtonMcThickums]

Can anyone help me make sense of what’s going on with my cycle?
I’ve had the filter running on a water pitcher (tank is a monthish into a dry start with 1.5-2 months more to go) to cycle it. While I have been testing twice a day I’m in no rush to fill the tank nor add livestock. This is just quite interesting to me, I’m new to this lol.

I started the filter maybe the 19’th and in absence of ammonia I put quarter of a cup of organic soil & worm castings in. The pure ammonia arrived on the 22’nd and I began dosing as per Dr.Tim’s guidelines. Added more on certain days per the company’s directions to try and get the ammonia above 2ppm.

I did a 50% water change on the 24’th due to the ph dropping below 7, which did fix it. It dipped again the next day and I added a pinch of baking soda and that fixed it as well.
Should I even be doing water changes during cycling? 

What piques my curiosity is the jumps in nitrite and nitrate the past 2 days. Is any of this making sense to anyone else? The filter/pitcher is seeded with a large sponge from a seasoned tank, has a sword plant submerged in there and then about 20 rooted plants feeding off of the water column. I’m adding Nutrafin GRO (last dosed when I first got the filter running) to fertilize the sword plant.
Given the plants I know it is going to mess with my readings but my grasp on cycling is loose even without that complication lol. (I get the nitrogen cycle, it’s applying the fluctuations in readings. I realize such a small volume of water makes it much more difficult)
Tysvm to anyone who leaves some input.

I’m so tempered to go Cory’s way and just let it run for 6 weeks or watch for plant growth/algae and proclaim it safe.

[face]

The nitrite is normal if I’m reading your chart right and the nitrate is just a inaccurate reading because you have nitrite in the water nitrate tests work by breaking down nitrate into nitrite and testing for that so if it’s already in the way you will get a false high nitrate reading

Edited Sunday at 12:15 AM by face