In article .com,
says...
... Ammonia=4ppm,nitrite=0,nitrate=0.

These are typical numbers for a system that has not cycled. Ammonia is quite high
at this point and harmful to the fish.


Fish store said I was under-filtered. I had a whisper 30. I got rid
of that and put in a emperor 280. It has been several days an no
improvement. I have used cycle. I have used something that came in a
packet that had to be refrigerated (can't remember the name). Still no
luck.


Emperor 280 is a good unit. The biowheel on the 280 needs to develop the colonies
of bacteria that will digest the ammonia and then the nitrite. The biowheel
probably has more biofilter value than everything else in your system, so in
effect you have just begun the cycling process when you installed this filter.

Questions:

Planning on doing a 20% water change today and vaccuming the gravel in
hopes of clearing up the water. Good idea?

Yes, this is a good idea but since you have a lot of ammonia you should do a
larger water change to bring it down. 20% water change still leaves you with
3.2ppm ammonia which is high for any fish. You will not slow down the cycling with
a 40% water change. Since there is going to be a continuing production of ammonia
you might need to settle into a 20% water change every day for the next week.
Check your pH. Low pH renders ammonia less harmful, high pH more harmful. If your
tank is around 7 then you can relax a bit. If 7.5 or higher then your fish would
appreciate the water changes. Two things to keep in mind:

1) Do not overfeed!!! Any food that you add to the aquarium, whether it is eaten
by fish or not, will lead to further ammonia production.

2) Be sure to dechlorinate water before adding it to the aquarium. Amquel would be
a good choice at this point.

Are water changes detrimental to cycling?

You have plenty (an excess) of ammonia to feed the cycling process, so no problem
with water changes.

The emperor 280 comes with a media basket. Should I put something in
there?

Not necessary. The filter cartridge and biowheel provide mechanical and biological
filtration. I doubt that you need chemical filtration but if you want to spend $
you can buy some stuff that will bind ammonia. You can accomplish what you need by
avoiding overfeeding and doing water changes as needed to control ammonia. If you
could keep it at 1mg/l your fish would be better able to take it for a week.