Cycling and Ick Questions

[Metalette]

So I'm in the process of cycling my 10 gallon freshwater tank, I've had the tank for 2 weeks with fish in it, and even though I didn't even now about cycling until after I already got the fish, I'm lucky that I still have 2 balloon mollies, a platy, and 3 fancy guppies.

I'm going to take the water to Petco in the next few days to see what my ammonia, nitrate, & nitrite levels are. Just a few questions:

How will I know when my tank is cycled? When my ammonia and nitrite levels are 0?

What about my nitrate levels? How much nitrates can safely be in the water? And if the nitrate level is too high, do I just do water changes? Or is there something else I should do to lower the nitrates?

When I do partial water changes, are my ammonia and nitrite levels going to go back up? Or do they stay at 0 because of the good bacteria?

What about the filter? When I change the filter, do I need to recycle my tank since the "good bacteria" is in the filter?

Also, my fish still have ick, I thought it was gone, but I've been noticing them "flashing" and now I'm seeing some white spots on a few of them. I was putting an ick tablet in after doing partial water changes (and take the carbon out of the filter), but I don't know why the ick isn't going away. I even took out most of the rocks to make sure ick wasn't in the rocks. I don't think a drop in water temperature is causing the ick because it is a steady 80-82 degrees all the time, even when I do 25%-50% water changes every few days. So then does that mean stress is causing the ick? If so, what is stressing the fish? I don't see how any of the levels (ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate) could get high enough to stress the fish when I'm continuing to do water changes. I add some aquarium salt when I do water changes (I do the math and figure out how much I need per how much water I replaced to be sure I'm not overdosing the fish on salt) because I've read that causes the fish to be less stressed. There's a bubbler in the tank, so I'm pretty sure they're getting enough oxygen.

Lastly, I'm thinking about getting a few plants for my aquarium, will this do more good or bad for the tank? It seems like it would do good because it would oxygenate the water, but I don't know if it's somehow going to affect other levels or stress the fish out even more.

Sorry for the million questions, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, guys!

 

[buddha_red]

Short answer is yes when you see no ammonia and nitrites you are cycled.

longer answer
Remember the cycle lives on things in the tank, the glass, gravel, heaters.. you get the idea. The water itself does not contain much of the nulifying bacteria.

Once your tank is cycled, will not see any ammonia or nitrites in a properly maintained cycled aquarium. The ammonia, nitrites and nitrates will continue to build up in the water while you are cycling, so pwc's are very important. Testing your water is super important. Buy the kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates while you are at petco. Buy liquid based tests from api. i use the master kit and have no complaints. The strips have their use, but thats another post..

Adding plants to an aquarium is a great idea, as long as you have the light for it.
Typical 10g setups do not include powerful lights, so you may have to upgrade.

i would stop adding salt to the aquarium. You do not need much for a FW tank.

ok to wrap up,

We need to know your water readings so get those kits

How often do you do your pwc's?

got any pictures? hehe

 

[Metalette]

What are pwc's?

 

[Metalette]

I thought about it for a sec and figured it out, pwc = periodic water changes. I usually do 25%-50% about every 3 days.