Newbie cycling questions

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DGrab

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Messages
13
Location
Minneapolis
So before I had known about fishless cycling I had added fish. They basically are stuck there because I don't have any other tank or options and all that so here are my questions
-Now that they are in the tank what can I do? Should I add some sort of water treatment or just hope these fish can ride it out?
-I've read about doing water changes but the part that confuses me is if I'm trying to balance my water to a certain spot wouldn't adding and taking water out just disrupt that or is it that because I'm trying to eliminate ammonia my tap water wont have any (or much) so I'll be adding water that has less ammonia so it helps lower it?

So far all the fish seem fine and dandy they've been very active since they went in the tank (maybe a week? the fish went in a day after it was up and running)
 
Doing water changes won't hurt your cycle. You need to keep the ammonia low enough to not hurt the fish. As the ammonia and nitrites builds up over time the bacteria multiply, WCs reduce the ammonia but usually not 100%, and it slowly builds up until the next WC during which the bacteria are using it and multiplying more. Essentially as the bacteria grow you'll have to do less and less WCs per week until your ammonia and nitrites stays 0 and you only have to worry about WC for nitrates. A good average WC schedule is 30% weekly for most cycled tanks.
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