Where's my ammonia going?

[Thub]

Hi guys, my first saltwater tank (a used Biocube 29) has been filled for 3 days. I filled the tank with RO/DI water and Instant Ocean purple bag salt adjusted to 1.026SG. Substrate is Arag-alive fiji pink and 20 ish lb of Life-Rock (not live rock). I added a bottle of Dr Tim's one and only and dosed Seachem Stability as the label suggests (just because I had it) . I dosed 3PPM of ammonia via some Ace hardware ammonia, tested immediately and saw my expected ~3ppm. Now, two days later, I'm at 1ppm.
I've been testing Nitrite twice a day because I'm curious how quickly the cycle will start, and I've only ever seen 1 positive Nitrite test in my life and wanted to see it again. i've seen no trace with the API test. Nitrate appears to be 0 as well, but I'm using the API kit, so the first increment is 5ppm.
It was my understanding that the 3 stages of the nitrate cycle were fairly discrete, meaning nitrate isn't created until nearly all ammonia was gone. Is that a bad understanding? Is it possible the tank is nearly finished with it's cycle in two days? Is something stealing my ammonia?

 

[EMeyer]

Ammonia is consumed by three processes

• nitrification (this is what you are describing, conversion into nitrite and nitrate)
• heterotrophic assimilation (by microbes or invertebrates like corals and sponges)
• photoautotrophic assimilation (by algae)

I have also found that ammonia is consumed early in the life of a tank without any conversion to nitrite or nitrate. Not subtle amounts. Lots of ammonia.

Are your lights on?

In any case my practice is to keep the lights off to minimize algal uptake, don't add any carbon so you can minimize heterotrophic uptake, and just maintain ~1 ppm ammonia until nitrites and nitrates start showing up.

 

[King Turkey]

Ammonia can sometimes seem like it skips nitrite phase also if it is converted super fast. But to see you are cycled you want ammonia and nitrite to go from about 5 to zero In 24 hours showing nitrate in a reading. Hope that helps.