Fish that are not fed still produce ammonia through the respiration process. What is your Ph? If it is down around 6 then you will have no nitrification. Make sure it is up around 7 or higher.
Another "Cloudy Water" thread but...
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To clarify, are you saying that even low PH will prevent from ammonia creation (and possibly why I'm not detecting any)? So the ways that I know to increase PH is based on the PH of tap water, do a partial water change and/or use chemicals. From what I've read, using chemicals to change PH or the ones to target a certain level (i.e. 7.5) will negatively impact plant growth. I suppose cycling and fish care is more important at this time, but the plants are doing fairly good. Is my understanding correct and are there other ways to alter PH? Thanks.
This is how I understand it works:
One of if not the primary purpose of urea, urine, uric acid, excrement, defecation in most (all?) organisms is the removal of excess nitrogen (N) which is otherwise poisonous to a biological organism. Plant life contains a lot of fixed nitrogen (which is why plants work to reduce nitrogen problems in an aquarium.) But protein also is made up of fixed nitrogen as well. Most fish use the gills because that is how fish evolved (and because ammonia dispersal via gills is far more efficient and less costly biologically than defecation), but the source of the nitrogen is not from the gills or the water, it's from protein that is in the food fish eat. Terrestrial animals evolved differently (likely since using the lungs to excrete ammonia isn't a healthy method.)
(Undigested waste products are also removed that way and that is the essential purpose of the excretory and digestive systems.)
Food contains protein and protein contains nitrogen. Fish eating food, convert excess nitrogen into ammonia.
Without food, I'm unclear what the source of nitrogen is for a fish to excrete. Water is only H2O and so the source of the N (nitrogen) in ammonia afaik only comes from the protein in food. Even if it's the painfully slow degradation of muscle tissue within the fish from starvation and lack of food, it's a tiny fraction of what a healthy fish produces when fed properly.
So, my understanding is that if you don't feed the fish, you don't get any ammonia. As always, I'm looking for answers, so if someone wants to correct me, I'll thank you in advance.
One of if not the primary purpose of urea, urine, uric acid, excrement, defecation in most (all?) organisms is the removal of excess nitrogen (N) which is otherwise poisonous to a biological organism. Plant life contains a lot of fixed nitrogen (which is why plants work to reduce nitrogen problems in an aquarium.) But protein also is made up of fixed nitrogen as well. Most fish use the gills because that is how fish evolved (and because ammonia dispersal via gills is far more efficient and less costly biologically than defecation), but the source of the nitrogen is not from the gills or the water, it's from protein that is in the food fish eat. Terrestrial animals evolved differently (likely since using the lungs to excrete ammonia isn't a healthy method.)
(Undigested waste products are also removed that way and that is the essential purpose of the excretory and digestive systems.)
Food contains protein and protein contains nitrogen. Fish eating food, convert excess nitrogen into ammonia.
Without food, I'm unclear what the source of nitrogen is for a fish to excrete. Water is only H2O and so the source of the N (nitrogen) in ammonia afaik only comes from the protein in food. Even if it's the painfully slow degradation of muscle tissue within the fish from starvation and lack of food, it's a tiny fraction of what a healthy fish produces when fed properly.
So, my understanding is that if you don't feed the fish, you don't get any ammonia. As always, I'm looking for answers, so if someone wants to correct me, I'll thank you in advance.
Nitrification stops below a pH of 6 because bacteria that perform it go into hibernation at a pH below 6. Very low temps (much lower than tropical fish can tolerate) can have a similar effect.
On the other hand, at low pH, the ammonia isn't as dangerous an issue. The attached is really chemistry stuff, but see the following.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews/2008/0421JohnSawyer.htm
Anyway, in the big picture, it doesn't matter where the ammonia comes from...so getting myself back on topic. 
As Rodger asked, what is your pH? If it's low in the tank (~below 6.7), then the next question is what is the pH of your tap water? (You can measure it, just get a sample and let it sit for 24 hours first.) As things slowly clear up, you'll want to get the cycle under way.
As Rodger asked, what is your pH? If it's low in the tank (~below 6.7), then the next question is what is the pH of your tap water? (You can measure it, just get a sample and let it sit for 24 hours first.) As things slowly clear up, you'll want to get the cycle under way.
I'll will confirm. The PH of my tap water taken weeks back was ~7.6 (with the API kit). I know that it has gone down since then and now around ~6.4. I have big pieces of driftwood, so I'm sure that's contributing to reducing PH, level correct? I'd like a "controlled" method of increasing the PH, without negatively impacting plants. I've read of some alternative methods to increase PH, but curious if using something from API PH UP would be OK for the short term to get cycling going - again, don't want to kill plant growth? Thanks.
do a bucket test, take your tap water and put in a 5g bucket, test the PH, then leave a bubble stone or bubbler in for 24 hours and test PH again. this will give you a true base line of what your tap water PH will be after 24 hours in the tank. the PH will go down, you want to know how much.
Make sure you smack the Nitrate test bottles to break up the solution inside of them then shake the bottles for a few minutes. The test solutions settle out like ice tea mix and crystallize. You need to break it up and mix it back into solution. Then re test your Nitrate.
