Thanks everyone for the advice. We lost a Pleco last night. He was just swimming around and then it looked like he just short circuited or something and died on the spot. Haven't lost any other fish but my wife is having a hard time dealing with the losses as well as my older son. So we have decided to return all our fish and do a fish-less cycle so the possibility of losing more fish will be way lower.
Can anyone just literally tell me what to do once the tank is cycled. There is so much info out there it feels very overwhelming and it's honestly stressing me out. I would love to know how to do a water change effectively and not kill my fish. Like I know I need a chemical to remove chlorine from tap water. We bought a pH buffer and Bacteria in a bottle (however I may be switching from stability since it seems to be the worst one), but do we need these when we do a water change after the tank is cycled? Which brands of chemicals would you suggest? I also purchased an API master test kit to get more accurate results, but how often do I need to test the water when there are no fish?
Can anyone just literally tell me what to do once the tank is cycled. There is so much info out there it feels very overwhelming and it's honestly stressing me out. I would love to know how to do a water change effectively and not kill my fish. Like I know I need a chemical to remove chlorine from tap water. We bought a pH buffer and Bacteria in a bottle (however I may be switching from stability since it seems to be the worst one), but do we need these when we do a water change after the tank is cycled? Which brands of chemicals would you suggest? I also purchased an API master test kit to get more accurate results, but how often do I need to test the water when there are no fish?