Please Help

[potterk2010]

Hi I am new to fish keeping. I bought a 46 gal bowfront tank about 4 weeks ago and added 12 guppy feeder fish about 3 weeks ago. I have a marieneland emperor 400 filter with the bio wheels. When I started the tank I used the bacteria starter. I have 10 guppy fry in there now that are about 3 weeks along with 2 glo fish and 5 of the twelve guppy feeder fish and a small catfish. I only added the glofish and catfish about 3 days ago. I have a API master test kit and test the water regularly as well as do water changes of 10 percent once a week. I have had a maximum of amonia of .25 one time with no nitrites and no nitragtes ever. Is my tank cycling at all my fish seem happy and healthy and have no problems. The water is really clear and my 4 live plants are doing great. Please help me if I am doing something wrong or if it takes longer to cycl. I thought we would at least have some kind of amonia startng by now. I also have 2 bettas each in their own 3 gallon tank and there cycles have already started and are done. We wanted to return the feeder guppy and fry to the store and start to create our community tank. Please help.

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Welcome to the forum! Could you please list the fish in the tank, like this

1 Clownfish
1 Cherub angelfish
1 Firefish

That would make it less confusing. Why dont you check out the Beginners Resource Center?

 

[potterk2010]

As it turns out we decided to try to do a cichlid tank instead of a community tank so I am in the process of changing the 46 gal to a 26 gal slowly.

46 gal: 2 peppered cory
5 feeder guppy
10 guppy fry

26 gal: 3 glofish

I am going to add the cories to the 29 gal. in about a week depending on how the tank does with the glofish. I still have no amonia, nitrites, or nitrate readings in any tank. I plan on leaving the guppies in the 46 gal tank until I can figure out the cycling to see if the process will get started. I plan on the 26 gal having just glofish and cories and the 46 gal african cichlids. I know I want 3 yellow lab cichlids (1 male, 2 female), 2 pictus cats, and 1 synodontis petricola, and 1 smaller pleco. I also want to add some other type of cichlid to the tank that is colorful and would like blue. Any helpful hints would be great. Thanks

 

[Blitz]

THis ins't very helpful, but add about 3-4 more peppered cories. They're schooling fish.
Maybe add a couple more glo fish too. I'm pretty sure danios like to school (Glo-Fish are danios)

I know some cichlids like to be in a crowd, but I don't think you can hold much in a 46 gallon. You might want to just keep 2-3 yellow labs in the 46. You want to keep dwarf/pygmy cichlids? You can keep a whole bunch in the 46, MAYBE along with a small pleco.

 

[potterk2010]

THis ins't very helpful, but add about 3-4 more peppered cories. They're schooling fish.
Maybe add a couple more glo fish too. I'm pretty sure danios like to school (Glo-Fish are danios)

I know some cichlids like to be in a crowd, but I don't think you can hold much in a 46 gallon. You might want to just keep 2-3 yellow labs in the 46. You want to keep dwarf/pygmy cichlids? You can keep a whole bunch in the 46, MAYBE along with a small pleco.

Thanks Blitz, I do want to get a few more cories and at least 6 or more glofish I was just tryng to go slow for cycling purposes. I was looking at the Demasoni and the socolofi to put with the yellow labs. We also really wanted the pictus catfish in there too. I read that if you cant have 12 demasoni that one male would be ok, any suggestions? I dont mind having a little overstocking to help with aggression because I do water changes at least once a week and usually keep up on the testing of the water. I have a emperor 400 hob filter for up to 90 gallons so I think thats enough filtration for a slight overstocking but like I said Im new to this. Also we don't want to breed or have fry so I am hoping that we can control this in some way any help would be great, thanks

 

[colleen0309]

Good morning and welcome to the forum!

 

[Dazzler666]

Welcome!! .
Firstly, i wouldnt think about adding any more fish till you have fully cycled which at the moment from what you saying it seems like you havent. As you no doubt aware, ANY ammonia & nitrite is toxic & harmful to fish.
What test kit are you using?
If you havent defo read the cycling section on here then thats a great place to start. Oh, and research, research then research everything BEFORE you do or buy!!!
Good luck with your cichlid set-up matey and a BIG welcome!!!