So we set up and started running the pump on a Flex15 seven days ago, followed by a trip down to the Aquarium Co-op store to get the rest of our supplies. So far, we've added:
A hair shy of two bags of active flora substrate
Pogostemon (octopus plant)
Water lettuce
Moneywart
One other dark green grass plant as a grab bag whose name I can't recall
A handful of water lettuces
16oz of Fritzyme (over the last week)
30 drops of Fritz water conditioned/dechlorifier
15 gals of tap water with no chlorine, 6.8 pH and low KH buffer (around 40ppm)
On Monday and then again on Tuesday we added a half cube (so around 5g) of frozen cyclops fish food, and we're testing water every day. We're also testing water every day, and I'm getting the following numbers yesterday (24 hrs after first 5g of cyclops) and today (48 hrs after first 5g cyclops, 48 hrs after second 5g of cyclops):
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm
Hardness (GH): 75 ppm
Buffer (KH): between 40 and 60 ppm
pH: 6.8
Chlorine: 0 ppm
Water temp: 70°F
My question is whether this seems right and on track to be considered "cycled," or if it should take more time for the 5g cyclops/day to actual convert to ammonia to see if the cycle is in fact started. I also think that running at 70° shouldn't be a problem for establishing the nitrogen cycle, but maybe we need to hold off to confirm until we get a heater?
Our four year old is super excited to get some fish, but we don't want to rush them into a stressful environment.