Newbie Mistake, Forgot To Cycle A Tank Please Advise.

[b3cca]

Yes lol it is difficult, hence most people will advise to take the fish back to the store while you fishless cycle your tank and filter and then you can go get them back.
 
If you have a big spike when you're at work , then more than likely your fish will suffer a painful death.

 

[Noahsfish]

A feeder fish? What do you mean? Guppies don't eat live fish, if that's what you meant...oh and if you're on the market for a water conditioner try seachem prime, lasts forever and is reasonably priced. Works great too

 

[eaglesaquarium]

On a side not please don't yell at me for no heating, six people on another forum did already, water temp is mid seventies at the moment without supplemental heating and it the middle of the night. During the day it was getting closer to 80 almost thought I might need to add cooling somehow. Florida is too dang hot.

 
We try to maintain a level of decorum on this site.  Yelling and berating folks on this site is generally not tolerated.  It never helps things.
 
 
I understand the Florida climate.  A heater is something that you should invest in before "winter" (if you can call it that) sets in, just so that the temp doesn't drop too low.  You need to be more concerned with the temp getting too hot more than too cold.  If you don't have your A/C running, it can certainly get too hot in the summer, especially as the humidity rises, the evaporation rate of the tank water will decrease - which is how the tank can cool down in warm weather.
 
 
Your 'feeder fish' comment confused me.  Feeder fish are usually fish that are fed to large predatory fish.  It seems as though you are referring to a "predatory fish" that will eat the guppy fry.  Is that accurate?

 

[ZameShadows]

ok the feeder fish was a typo, I meant cleaner fish or snails or something that won't eat the fry but will help keep the tank clean once I get the whole thing cycled properly, after 50% water changes last night and this morning all the fish look good I'll keep a close eye on them today. I also just set up a proper filter and took out the bubbler, and then added a bit of an ammonia/nitrate blocker, Nutrafin Cycle. Hopefully that will keep the levels down. I also picked up a water testing kit and will do the first test in an hour or so once the nutrafin has a chance to start working. If the levels are still off I'll do another waterchange and then test again before I go to sleep tonight.

 

[fluttermoth]

Remember that you want to keep both ammonia and nitrite as near to zero as you can
 
Best of luck, and don't be scared of doing big (and by 'big', I mean 80 or even 90%) water changes. As long as the new water is temperature matched and dechlorinated, it won't hurt your fish.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Red Cherry shrimp should be fine, once the cycle is finished.

 

[fluttermoth]

Yep; don't even think about adding anything else (fish or shrimps) until your filter is cycled; you don't want to be adding any more sources of ammonia to deal with!
 
Shrimps are also a bit more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than fish, so if you add them too soon, you'll just lose them anyway

 

[ZameShadows]

pH roughly 7.5 looks like it could be a bit lower but that's the closest one on the color card.
nitrite is at 0 
ammonia 0.25 ... was kind of expecting to be a fair bit higher but I'll take this as a good sign and check the ammonia again in 6-8 hours
phosphate below 0.25, hard to compare this one the colors are so close together but it appears to be very low if not zero


red cherry shrimp, I'll look into it I don't plan on adding anything else for the next couple weeks at least, I'll check back with the thread and post any abnormal readings when I can.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Phosphates don't really matter to a cycle, so I'd save myself the time testing it.  I'd do a water change with 0.25ppm and 7.5 pH.  Lower pH and the ammonia is the non-toxic ammonium form.  Higher pH, like 7.5+ are where the ammonia takes on the toxic form, ammonia.

 

[ZameShadows]

ok I'll do another water change after I eat something then and do the next test later tonight to make sure the levels are dropping. The fish seem much happier although the smallest of the 3 females seems to be getting harassed a bit more than I'd like, I think I'll try to find a friend with a working aquarium to take one or two of the males, I need to fix the 1:1 ratio before she gets too stressed out
 
 

Phosphates don't really matter to a cycle, so I'd save myself the time testing it.  I'd do a water change with 0.25ppm and 7.5 pH.  Lower pH and the ammonia is the non-toxic ammonium form.  Higher pH, like 7.5+ are where the ammonia takes on the toxic form, ammonia.

 

[ZameShadows]

did a 75% change out on the water, all the fish seem fine although one of the males while he swims fine when he does move seems to want to hide and just lie still, could he just be tired from all the water changes in the past two days?