Fishless cycles can take as long as 7 week or more. Nitrites should not appear until enough ammonia eating bacteria have grown to make it, and nitrate should not increase above tap level until some nitrite eaters have grown.
Reading through your posts, if I have it right, you've had the tank 5 weeks but you didn't add any ammonia until about 2 weeks ago. So you are still probably at the stage of waiting for the ammonia eaters to grow.
What brand of bacteria did you add? Some are better than others.
Ammo lock isn't needed during fishless cycling as there are no fish to come to harm.
The idea behind silent cycling is that plants use ammonia as fertiliser. if there are enough of them, they'll take up all the ammonia made by a sensibly stocked tank of fish - and they don't turn it into nitrite or nitrate. But there needs to be a lot of fast growing plants, the odd one or two slow growing plants aren't enough. Anubias are slow growers.
As mcordelia says, floating plants are particularly good because they can can get carbon dioxide from the air and they are close to the lights. Everything from Salvinia, though Amazon frogbit and water lettuce to water sprite. Stem plants like anacharis (aka elodea) and hornwort can also be used as floating plants.
Once the tank is planted, take a photo. You can use this to see how much your plants are growing. You need to wait until the plants are showing signs of active growth - the last thing you need is to get fish then the plants just die. Once you know the plants are growing well, fish can be added. With 10 gallons, it's not really practical to add them a few at a time, the recommendation with bigger tanks. I would probably get all the puffers at once - but make sure there's lots of nice new growth on the plants before you do.
You may find there's some nitrite in the water when the tank is ready for fish - if there is, do a water change before going fish shopping.
Once you have fish, test for ammonia and nitrite every day till yuo are sure they are staying at zero. If either do show up, you just need to do a water change.
Floating plants and those stem plants which feed through their leaves need a liquid fertiliser. The two best are Seachem Floruish Comprehensive Supplement and Brightwell FlorinMulti. For the sword plant, a root tab - mcordelia has already mentioned that Seachem Flourish root tabs are one of the best.
