CPryor
Aquarium Advice Activist
I got some ammonia from Ace, then went to the pet store to pick up a test kit (which they were extremely limited on) and some dwarf hair grass (which is a pain to keep from floating). While I was there I was talking to one of the employees and told them about adding ammonia to cycle the tank and she looked at me like I was crazy! Here is how that conversation went. Her: "No! You should NEVER have ammonia in your tank, your ammonia levels should ALWAYS be at 0 or it will kill your fish" me: "I don't have any fish yet, I will just be using it to help the cycling process. The levels will be at 0 when I put fish in." her: "It doesn't matter. Never put ammonia in your tank."
So I got home and put my rocks in from my dad's house, which to my surprise tested ok for everything other than nitrite (which was off the charts). I think he is trying to kill that Pacu, personally. I haven't added any ammonia yet because I want to see how the tank does after a few days with just the rock's bacteria helping out. If nothing is happening, I will add some ammonia.
Agh. Embarrassing. If there are no fish in the tank, the ammonia is hurting NOTHING; it's just food for the bacteria you want to colonize. Her advice refers to when you have fish in the tank: ammonia is toxic to them. I'm not an expert, as I've only started two tanks myself, but....
Don't listen to her...you NEED some ammonia to feed the colony of ammonia-processing bacteria. If your seeder gravel is processing ammonia into nitrites, you need the ammonia to feed that particular bacteria and keep it alive.
You could probably add about three neon tetras at this point, if you wanted to fish-in cycle: with the bacteria colony to process the ammonia, the live plants, and the test kit you mentioned, you should be able to fish-in cycle humanely if you stock SLOWLY, keep a sharp eye on your parameters, and do partial water changes... Thats when the NO ammonia rule kicks in; if it's registering on your test kit, it needs to be removed though water changes. Weather you do fish-in or fish less, you need some ammonia.
More experienced forum-goers, feel free to chime in: like I said, I'm not as seasoned as some