Advice On Fishless Cycle Please

Hello everyone, can I ask for some opinions please?

I’m new to fish keeping, but trying to do things properly.  I’m also under offspring pressure to get fish asap.

I’m trying to put together a planted nano tank (32l) to house a handful of Endlers Livebearers.

I’m also trying to do a fishless cycle, but am worried because nothing seems to be happening.

I live in London so my water is quite hard (out of the tap it’s around 180kH, 180gH, pH 7.5-8).  This has been treated with Tetra’s Aquasafe.

My thought was to push the cycle faster, to keep small people happy.

So I dosed the tank to 2ppm ammonia (Dr Tims), added a double dose of Tetra’s SafeStart bacteria, heated it to 26C, and kept an eye on it.  After 9 days, ammonia had dropped to 1ppm, so I topped it back up to 2ppm.  Nitrite has stayed stubbornly at 0.  Nitrate is around 20-40ppm (but that’s how the water comes out of the tap).

We’re now at day 13 with no sign of bacteria development (no nitrite).  I’m using APIs master test kit to test for Ammonia and NO2.  Reading across the internet suggests that I should have seen some bacteria development around day 9 if I’d done nothing but put Ammonia in the water.

Does anyone want to hazard an opinion at what’s happening?  I’ve obviously proved that the money spent on SafeStart was wasted (I’ll put it down to a dead batch), but even so should I have seen something by now, or are my expectations too high?

If things are going slower than expected, what do you think I’ve done wrong?

Can I try dumping another load of bacteria (bought from a different store, maybe a different brand) in the tank?

I don’t know if it’s relevant, but the plants are all showing new foliage, and in the last two days we’ve had a bloom of brown algae (cleaning the tank tomorrow).

Thanks for your help,

Nearly.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I’ve added a total of 2.3ml of Dr Tim’s Ammonium Chloride (2 doses, 1.5ml and 0.8ml) which at 40mg/ml concentration is 92mg (60mg and 32mg).

So I can stop worrying and just keep monitoring until the 2ppm ammonia doses disappear overnight? The drop in ammonia can’t be accounted for by the plants or algae?

Of course there’s also nothing wrong with adding more bacteria.