Just did a water change on my 2 week old 30 gallon with 3 neon tetra and 2 guppies?

[CakeBadger]

How can I tell if my fish are happy let alone doing good? I've previously had them in a 5 gallon( yes all of them) I have been doing water changes every week. And my filter cartridge has this grayish brown color on it? Does it mean its done cycling? I also have started to feed them every other day. I need some serious advice. Remember I dont have another tank to put them in put I will be adding six more neons in the next 2 weeks. I have some river rocks and terra cotta pots that I boiled for hiding places. They seem really lively though. They all come up to eat and the tetra stay together although one will sometimes drift off. They swim everywhere in the tank. And my ghost shrimp just molted should I remove the skin?

 

[Fresh2o]

Leave the molted skin. The shrimp will most likely eat it at some point for its mineral content.
The only way you know your tank/filter is cycled is through testing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.


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[thing fish]

buy a good master test kit and post up the results. i doubt that your tank is cycled yet unless you used the filter media from your previous tank.

how often are you changing the water and how much? make sure you do not rinse out the filter media or do too much cleaning of the substrate/walls.

if you know of anyone with an established tank, ask them if you can clip a little bit of their filter media and add it to yours. this will speed things up a lot.

i would not add any additional fish until your water parameters show zeroes for both ammonia and nitrite.