[Vnessa123456]

Hi, I'm new to this board and fishkeeping in general.

I have two tanks, a 5 gallon with two glofish, one Guppy and two zebra danios.
The other tank is a new 37 gallon with four hillstream loaches, two dwarf gouramis and three xray tetras as starter fish.

Right now I'm anxiously waiting out the nitrate cycle. I'm so nervous because my tank water keeps reading 0 nitrates and .25 ppm ammonia. Any time one of my loaches hides, I have a mini heart attack and assume someone has died!

Thanks for reading and I hope I can learn a lot from you guys! I will have many questions, I'm certain.

[Vnessa123456]

Just to clarify, the 3 tetras were the starter fish. I had those in for a week an a half before I got excited at the fish store and bought the hillstream loaches.

I waited another week and a half before getting excited and buying the gouramis. I hope I didn't stock my tank too soon.

[Beaches]

Welcome to the forum and I hope you like your stay here!

Patience is the key in this hobby...

[Jakiebabie]

Yes it takes a lot of patience. Cycling a tank can take up to 6-8 weeks without live plants. And even then if we clean the filter pad with tap water we can cause a mini cycle. Lots of things can slow the process down. No more new fish until you have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and .20 nitrAtes. Just ride out the time line now. And once you get those numbers then you can add fish very very slowly.
It is also a good idea to test your tap water to know what "normal' is. my tap water is always 20 for Ammonia so I look for number above that for a problem in the tank. Keep testing the tank, get a liquid testing kit if you don't have one. Do water changes if your numbers get too high. stay on top of it and you can ride this out and hopefully not loose any loaches.
The good bacteria is in the filter media, not in the water so water changes are always good as long as you are using dechlorinator and matching tamperatures. good luck and keep us posted.

[Vnessa123456]

Thanks for the advice! I am clearly learning a lot here about cycling and maintaining an aquarium. I was told by the store clerk that my tank was fully cycled and that the cycling process takes two weeks max. (Probably not buying fish there again.)

Oh well, now I know to come to you guys with my questions instead of the LFS people. I've already decided not to add ANY more fish until the ammonia reads 0 consistently.

[lcbrent]

Welcome fellow newcomer!
This is indeed a great place to learn and just explore too! I've learned stuff here in the last few days that my 8 years of intermittent reading and research have missed. Hope you have great success in your new tank.

lisa