AquaGal,
Welcome to the forum and glad to hear your going fishless. IMO it is much faster and MUCH less work than cycling with fish. Get the ammonia at Ace like Fishyfanatic says, and dose to between 2-5ppm. You will need a liquid reagent test kit (I'm partial to Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Fresh Water Test Kit). This has tests for ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte, and pH. The strips are not near as accurate as the drops, and they are more expensive in the long run.
Also the reason why the fishless cycle is so easy is that you won't be dosing every day, you probably won't dose any more ammonia for the first 2 weeks or more. You'll simply dose enough ammonia to get to ~5ppm and then every couple days check the nitrIte levels. When you start to get a positive level of nitrIte, you then monitor the ammonia level until it gets low again (1ppm or under). Then you add enough ammonia to keep the level above 1ppm until you have built up a good amount of nitrAte in the tank. It's that simple. You'll love it when thinking how many water changes and possible fish deaths you might have gone through if you chose to start with fish.
Another great advantage is that if you build up a really big amount of bacteria during the fishless cycle you can FULLY stock your tank without worry. Before doing that check back here in the forum so we can make sure you have enough bacteria.
Here's a couple quick easy things you can do to speed up your fishless cycle:
1. Most important! Try to get some media/gravel/decorations from an established tank. Ask your LFS, any friends with fish tanks. The best thing to get would be some used filter media, followed by substrate (sand, gravel, etc), followed by decorations. All of these have a good amount of bacteria on them. Just make sure you keep them wet or else you'll kill the bacteria, and make sure your tank your fishless cycling with has had a dechlorinator added such as Prime. A good amount of media from an established tank can GREATLY shorten your cycle (my 20gallon cycled in 17days with some gravel from a friends tank).
2. Bump up the heat in your tank. Since you have no fish, you don't have to keep the tank temp at the fishes optimal temp (most tropicals like 78-82F, not sure exactly what cichlids like). Aim for 85-88F. This will speed up the metabolism of the bacteria so they will multiply faster.
3. Check your pH every so often. If it drops too low (close to 6.0-6.2) I'd recommend a water change. Obviously this only applies if your tap water is higher than this (most likely). At ~pH6 the bacteria seriously slow down or even stop reproducing (this will stall your cycle).
4. If you get filter media from another tank, put it in your filter, if you get gravel put it in a filter bag (or panty hose) and put it in your filter. If you have some left over, put it in another bag in the tank and periodically reach in and squish it around (it will cloud the tank with bacteria).
5. KEEP YOUR TANK LIGHTS OFF! There is nothing to see other than a possible white cloudiness (bacteria). When nothing else is in the tank, algae can get a foothold since it LOVES ammonia and there are no plants/bacteria to compete for the food.
HTH and congrats. We want to see pics once its setup!
justin