Ok, well its been a while now and my ammonia is still getting to 4+ppm if i let it. Ill have to do a change every week to keep it down. I stil havent gotten ANY nitrites except one time about 3 weeks ago @ about 2ppm. Since then i havent, straight 0 on the tests everytime and my pH is still 6.0 or below (test wont show lower). What im thinking is is that at at one point i was using tap water with the de-chlorinator it and i must have not used the right mix or whatever and traces of chlorine or something has gotten in my tank and is killing the good bacteria over and over....
So anyway, im still working on my saltwater reef setup and have an RO/DI unit now and also reef crystals on hand. Im going to take the fish out and start over using fresh RO/DI water and get the pH, GH, etc correct by using marine salt and baking soda mix.
Ill put the plants and fish back in and give it another few weeks changing out water with same properties mix every weekend. This should get me to cycle correctly..
im not in any rush and no fish have died, so im good with that. lost a couple of plants though, dont think they were liking the oxygen tube i was runnin under the rock bed, so i killed that and they have been doing beter. I tried cycling the lights off at night and they didnt like that either, causing black spots on the leaves. Im sure the high ammonia isnt helping them either.
Im also starting to get a dark brown/green algae growing on the back plastic rock i have for decoration. Nothing on glass or rocks yet... bio filter wheel looks the same as when it started, not sure what that means, or what it should look like, but it def doesnt look like it has bacteria on it.
I found my camera though, so i can post pics now =)