I Hope I Am Doing This Right...

[CyndiDD]

The last time I had a fishtank, freshwater, I had never heard of cycling (3+ yrs ago). Now I have a 50 gal tank and I have lost some Tetras and Barbs. I read it might be because of the tank needing to be cycled. I can't afford the ammonia and nitrite tester right now, so I took a sample of my water to the LFS. He said my ammonia was high (it was light green). The nitrite was light purple. I added something for ammnia, they were out of the one for nitrite.

So far eveything looks fine.

Oh, I also added salt, then read I shouldn't add it with plecos; I hope they will be ok.

I also have live plant "seeds" I bought at Wal-Mart. 2 said they were lilies. They are floating at the top, should they be doing that? They have not started growing yet.

The others are starting to grow. 3 have small green shoots, and one has just taken off. Is that a good sign that my tank is somewhat cyling?

Also, what is a good rule of thumb on how much flake food to feed them? I don't want to overfeed them.

Pictures coming later.

Thanks

C

 

[Zagggon]

Seems okay to me. Starting a tank from what I have learned over the years is always a stressfull period and in my experience its near impossible to have no fatalitys with a new tank even if you do a "perfect" cycle.