Cycled20g??

[huma-huma]

im gonna try to keep my following questions as simple as possible so i dont end up righting a novel. about 8 months ago i decided to upgrade from a 10g to a 20g...no big deal right? well back then i was a complete novice to the fish keeping scene and made the mistake of cleaning/scrubbing/drying all the deco,filter, and rocks. At that point,i had never heard of cycling, i understood the very basics of the ammo/nitrates/chlor requirements to keep fish "alive". My first question is this, I never monitored my 20g for chemical levels due to my fish never really dying off quickly or becoming unhealthy.How can i tell if my tank now has a decent bio-filter established or not (correctly cycled)? I now have a RENA HOB filter that has 3 filters on it. I never 100% replace the cartridges, i simply rinse them off in cold tap water every 2 months or so( i know this is bad, im gonna start rinsing them in tank water) I never actually vacuum the substrate, i simply mix it around to stir up the waste for the HOB filter to suck up. it is a planted tank ( cant remember the name of plant off hand) i have what i believe to be a decent variety of fish given the relitive small size. ill go 3-4 months without losing any fish at all, then all of the sudden ill lose 3-4 fish. and its rather quick too.
If it helps, I do dose my tank with aquarium salt as instructed and use aquasafe water conditioner.
i know test strips are junk but when i had my water tested at my local LPS, my ammo was "perfect", nitrates were between the good and stressed levels, but my nitrites were well into the stressed level.
im sorry but i cant 100% remember the numbers, i do believe he said my nitrites were at 60 though.
lastly, my second question,
did i end up on the lucky end of things being that i didnt truly cycle my tank? up until a month ago, i never used any chems at all.( no salt,no de-chlor, no aquasafe).
sorry for the long post but any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ejaramillo01]

Go Back to basics

IMO you need to have a fresh re start, some of the info that you shared doesn't make sense. Here are my suggestions:

1.- Purchase an API Master liquid kit test and perform your own readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Post your results here to get more advice.

2.- Purchase a dechlorinator such as PRIME, and do a partial water change immediately, around 50% of the water. Remember to add PRIME to the new water. And perform another PWC tomorrow, another 50%. Re-check your parameters and post again. Both times vacum the gravel.

This is just to go back to basics and then we can start to give you more advice.

 

[huma-huma]

thank you im gonna get to it now and ill try and post readings asap.