"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message ...
Day 8

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 2-3 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm

Day 9
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 1-2 ppm
Nitrate: 20-30 ppm

Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

I use the detritus/mulm that settles in the bottom of a water change
after vacuuming a section of tank. This can be anyone's FW tank , a
friend, LFS etc, I add this to a filter, the bottom 1/2 of a substrate
of a new tank and I never have any NO2 or NH4 when I add fish etc.
Nothing is better than fresh mulm+ plants, there is no cycle since the
plants get the NH4 and anything left over gets converted to NO3 and
taken in by the plants ASAP. The mulm is loaded with all the bacteria
you need and settles in faster than anything else, it's live fresh
bacteria whichh is what you want.

Regards,
Tom Barr