Hello there!

My chop and flip is chugging along. No fish yet. Plants have been in for about 12 days. The whole system has been running for about 4 weeks. I used Alaska brand fish emulsion to introduce ammonia into the system a few days after starting the system and also added a bottle of nitrifying bacteria a few days later. Soon thereafter I began seeing nitrites. But now, for the past week, my ammonia level has been stuck around 4 ppm, nitrite at 2 ppm, nitrate at 5 ppm, and pH around 5.4. I decided to do a 30% water change today with water from a nereby creek. I tested the creek water and got zero across the board. I forgot to test the creek water pH. I justed test my water and got ammonia 2 ppm, nitrite 2-5 ppm, nitrate 5 ppm, and pH 6.6. Water temps are consistently 80 deg F.

Hopefully that is enough info for someone to tell me if everything is going as expected, seeing as how this my first system. Do I need to give the system a bit more time to cycle? I feel like it's taking forever, especially since my water tests aren't really changing from day to day.

The fish tanks is 160 gallons, grow bed takes about 40 gallons every fill-up, and it's dumps 5 times per hour. I'm fairly certain I'm getting enough dissolved oxygen. I'm also getting aeration with an open valve between pump and grow bed that deposit water back to the fish tank constantly while still getting enough water to the grow bed.

What do you all think? Is it good to go and just be patient?