Ok ok, i am a bit confused. everytime i ask for advice at a pet store, i always get different advice. now i really have no clue what to do. ok well, my tank is now in the middle of cycling.
i will tell you step by step what i did, please tell me what is right for my tank. lol i am just so confused at this point.

1. i added water, added some beneficial bacteria and aqua safe.

2.) added oscars a few days later. (i know, bad idea)

3.) i started to get ammonia readings, i found out i have a lot of excess food at the bottom.

4.) i did a 30% water change to try and get out as much food as i can.

5.) i added more water with the beneficial bacteria and aqua safe.

6.) did a 10% water change a few days later to get the rest of the excess food out.

7.) i still had ammonia, nitrite reading after water changes and nitrate.

8.) i went to the store and told them what should i do. this lady said i should just add AMQUEAL. it removes ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. i asked her if it is safe for me to use it during this cycling stage. she said yes. ( others says dont add anything and do 10% water change every other day.)

ok so at this point what do i do? i have ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reading. they are all at semi-high. i guess not to dangerous for oscars. someone give me something i can really depened on.

i still have excess food at the bottom. i been using beneficial bacteria as well. aka cycle

u gotta bring those os back. they are probably gonna die in a few days. os are very sensitive to ammonia. the fact that theres excess food isnt helping and also proves that the o's arent 100% healthy. healthy os eat everything and anything. ur doing everything right, u just added the fish in too early.

im not too sure that removing the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate would help finish the cycle.

also vacume ALL the excess food on the ground. thats the worst thing u could ever do is leave excess food on the ground. its bad for your water in every way. try using flakes, since they float the food should be eaten before it reaches the ground. if ur still having that problem feed them less

no, my oscars are fine. they are crazy and eat everything!!!!! the pick at my thermometer, he almost bit my finger when i was trying to feed it a cricket.

the thing is, i did something reallllly stupid!! i added flakes for the oscars, a lot! and i did not have bottom feeders at the moment. so now i started to get ammonia readings. the ammonia is not that high anymore since i took out some of the food. but there are still some left. i was doing like 10-20% water change like every 4 days to get the food out.



i just want my tank to cycle prperly and look clear. thats another thing, my tank is a little murky. like i cant see the other side. i am guessing it is bc i interupted the cycle.

some lady just said add the nitrite, nitrte and ammonia remover. then just let it cycle. and dont touch the water.

my oscars are healthy are very active, the are hyper and come up all excited when they see me.

to begin with i would feed with a floating pellet and remove anything the o's have not eaten after about 2 mins. secondly i would continue doing 20% water changes every other day until the ammonia and nitrites are both reading zero. as you change your water you should vaccum the tank as well. this will help in reducing the amount of food you're finding on the botttom.also if you can find some media from an established tank(disease free) to put in your filter this will help a lot.

good luck to you and keep us informed on your progress

ya, i am feeding them floating pellets lol. i learned the hard way about flakes. i just thought the oscars would dig to eat the flakes lol. my oscars eat everything in less then 20 secs. i drop loads of pellets (large) and all are gone in about 5-15 seconds lol. so i dont know maybe its also that? i feed them like twice a day.


well my question is, you said i should do about 20% water changes every other day, until my ammonia and nitrires are 0. and i should add some media to the filter. disease free. what do you mean add media to the filter? lol i dont get it? you mean like bacteria supplements for the water? should i add that anyways?

what i meant was if you know someone who has an established tank ask them for some media be it a piece of foam or some bio balls something that already has some of the beneficial bacteria on it. this would help speed up the cycling of your tank.

also i think you should keep adding the bacteria supplement, the way i see it is that it can't hurt.

You can do 2 things

1- do 20% water changes every day without fail. Usually only feed what they will eat in 2 mins, reduce this by half until the tank is cycled and only feed once a day

2- add something like ammolock, or some such treatment (ammonia treatment). This turns the ammonia into a less harmful sort but it will still show up on a test (if you do a water change re-dose for the amount taken out)

Well, I'm just adding what I have just done for the past 8 stressful weeks while I was cycing my 150 gal with a full load of fish. I did not use any water additives because the false positives would have driven me crazy. I checked all my levels morning and night. Needed to and did partial water changes and light gravels vacs every other day. Alot, of work but well worth it for the health of my fish. In the 7th week of cycling my nitrites and trates started to show up. I was able to keep the trates down but could not get the trites down.
Then one day I tested in the morning the trites were still up, I came home at night and all my levels were perfect.
Last Saturday I did a water change/vac because Sunday was the big debut of my new tank for everyone to see and it had to be perfect. Anyways, since Sat. (5 days now) I've been keeping an eye on the water readings and everything is perfect, the ammonia is 0.25 but I think thats "OK" & I keep a real good eye on the water. This is the longest so far that I have gone without touching the water. I will probably do a small water
change/vac on Sat whether it needs it or not.
People drove me crazy with all the differences of opinions in the stores. I probably drove OFL and delboy crazy here too but they sure helped me through this. I did not loose any fish in the process either. Sorry, I went on so long. Just have lots of patience. Good luck and keep us posted.