Cycling Question. Whats going on???

[AntonioMinniefield]

I've been fishless cycling my 60g tank for 1.5 months now. Of course for the last two weeks My nitrItes stayed at a very high level. But today I tested for ammonia, nitrItes, and nitrAtes (api master test kit) and EVERYTHING read 0ppm. Is this normal??? The reason I ask is because I always thought that once my nitrItes dropped, my nitrAtes would still be high. I did add 4 small live plants about a week and a half ago. Could that be what stablized everything? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[mnemenoi]

It could account for the drop in Nitrates. Fishless cycles can be strange as there is no incoming source of Ammonia to continue fueling the system. I would add some food/flake and test again later to see if the cycle can handle it. You should get some Nitrate reading at that point.

[Totenkampf]

if you add another light dose of nh3 then you should see it work its way through no2 to no3. if you see a peak in no2 but no no3 then its either because of the plants, anaerobic activity in the substrate (a little of this is good) and/or water changes. As long as nh3 and no2 are 0 then i would consider it cycled since it is a FW aquarium. while you want to limit no3, its not a game breaker like it might be in SW. you will need some no3 for the plants in any case.