I just set up my first El Natural tank Wednesday afternoon. It's a 55 gal and I'm so happy with how it turned out! I had some initial cloudiness but that has cleared up. I had my fish stored in a 10 gal tank to await the tank getting ready, so I tested the water today and here's what I find. Ammonia .5-1 (can't rightly tell) nirIte .25 and no nitrAtes. So, I decided not to put my fish in yet. Do you think I should do a water change or just wait for the plants to do their thing? I must confess I did take the readings right after putting my arm in there and stirring things up so I'm sure that didn't help things any and certainly skewed the readings. I'll do another again tonight after things settle again though. It seems to me that the tank just hasn't cycled completely yet, do you concur?
Some soils take longer to settle down than others. In my 125, the soil I used took a month to settle down. In others with different soil, they were instantly ready for fish. I'd just let it run and see how it does.
The most important (and most difficult to follow) lesson I've learned in keeping NPT tanks is patience. If things aren't going the way you want, don't rush to change water or add chemicals or move fish around, unless plants and/or fish are being seriously hurt. In your case, high ammonia and nitrite, at least at those levels, are not going to harm (and in fact would be beneficial to) plants, though certainly harmful to fish. Since you don't have any fish in the tank, the best thing to do is to test the water every couple of days. Once the ammo and nitrite register at zero, then you're ok to begin adding fish.
Thanks for the replys. Patience is so hard!!! I guess my fish will just have to stare at that pretty new tank for a little while and lament the fact that they are in the "little tank" for a while longer. I'll do water checks every day just because I'm impatient.....a watched pot never boils.
One of my 2 water lettuce is shedding it's roots. I don't know what that means. The ammonia levels haven't changed, but I don't really expect them to yet either. (sigh)
I wanted to let you know that my ammonia levels have started to drop today. They are down to around .75. My Nitrites are WAY high. I can't even measure them. My purple won't even go that dark, so over 5. I'm glad that my water is starting to make progress. I thought you might like some pictures.
Left Side with "sandbox" for my dojo loaches to dig in
Right side with cave for my goldfish
Closeup of center of tank
As I'm sure you know, a nitrite spike after when the ammo. starts to drop is exactly what we'd expect as part of the nitrogen cycle. Also, some soils release lots of nitrite into the water so that could be a part of it too. So far though, sounds like everything is proceeding normally.
Ammonia level in new tank? 
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