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Yeah I know we see these all the time but I think there's something strange going on in my tank.

5 platies, 10 gallon tank (about 4 weeks old)
temp - 76
pH - 8.3 (its because of my gravel)
ammonia - 1.0 ppm
nitrite - ??
nitrate - 10?

Ok when I did the test my nitrite did not match any color on the little card so I'm thinking its just too high which is entirely possible because my tank is still cycling. My card goes up to 5 ppm...at what ppm does nitrite spike before the bacteria take over and turn it into nitrate? I also think there is something wrong with my nitrate test because it pretty much always reads 10 and has never changed.

If your nitrites are going off the chart you need to do a water change or your platies could be at risk. Did you use water from an established tank and have you tested your tapwater? The nitrates could be coming from there and your tank hasn't gotten to the point it's creating nitrates. That would give you the same test results everytime while the nitrites continue to go up. Where the ammonia or nitrites spike depends entirely on the fish load your cycling the tank with. I've had some tanks top off at .25ammonia and .5 nitrite because I cycled them very carefully. I've also done fishless cycles where I didn't care about the numbers and had ammonia around 8ppm and nitrites over 20 before it goes down. The lower your spike the slower you have to stock your tank because you have less of a bacteria population built up but it's less stressful and damaging to the fish.

I've added nothing from an established tank. Also, I tested my tap and it has a pH of 7 and 0 ppm of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.