cycling a new 36 gal tank?

[FishForHobby]

Hello all, I recently decided to upgrade from a small 5 gallon "walmart special" tank to a 36 gallon bow front I picked up at petsmart. I bought it on sunday and spent a good part of the day setting it up. I added the water conditioner and quick start. I let run till today when I got outta work, I made my first mistake and removed my fish ( 5 neon tetras, 2 glo fish, and one sucker fish (who were happy as can be in the small tank) and put them into my new tank. (HUGE MISTAKE!!!!) The neon tetras lasted for all about 2 hrs before the last one bit the dust. The glo fish are still hanging in there but are not very active, sucker fish is hangin in. I know I didnt let the tank cycle properly after some reading and I took a sample of water to the lfs and they tested it and said it looked good. My questions are.
1) Do I just leave it be and check on the fish and water everyday with a tester kit?
2) Can I take my small whisper fillter and hang it on my 36 gallon tank to help out the cycling process? Or keep the small tank going
3) Take out the remaining fish and put them back in the 5 gallon tank or will this stress them out to much?

Well any advice on how to get my new tank where it needs to be will be appreciated. I am pretty new at this and really havent got into the big tanks. I dont want to kill any more of my fish. Thanks for your help.

 

[shellieca]

Definitely get a test kit such as the API Master kit so you can test your water daily. You can do a fish in cycle with success if you test your water daily & do lots of water changes. When was the last time you did a water change? you haven't done a water change in the last couple of days I would suggest doing at least a 50% water change. While my 46g has been fish in cycling I've been doing 50% water changes on average every couple of days & there were times I did them daily. You want to keep the ammonia levels as close to zero as possible as well as keep the nitrItes & nitrAtes as low as possible. I also suggest you use Prime for your water conditioner, it doesn't remove ammonia but it does detoxify it. If your filter from the 5g isn't dried out, you've kept it wet you can add it to the 36g to help things out but only if it hasn't been dried out or rinsed with tap water. There are some cycling articles under the getting started forum that might help you out if you haven't read them I suggest doing so. This is a great forum for getting help so keep asking questions! Water changes are going to be the best thing for your tank & fish & they will NOT hinder the tank cycling.