"Christopher Lewis" wrote in message
...
My girlfriend bought me a 100 litre tank for my birthday a few weeks ago.
I
filled it with gravel a few fake plants and water and left the filter and
heater running for a few days.

I then went to my local fish shop and bought some small fish recommended
by
them to cycle the tank.

All OK so far right.

Then.... My mother boyfriend turns up at my house after 2 days of the
fish
being in the tank with a bag with about another 15 fish in it. They are
gourami's, 2 or three different kinds of mollies, a few red eyed tetra's
(i
think thats what they are called), some tiger barbs, some sharks someting
or
others (cant remember and i doubt they are real sharks).

So now i am doing a 20% water change every 2 days in an attempt to keep
the
ammonia and nitrite levels down. Yesterday ammoina was somewhere between
1
and 1.5 ppm so i did a 40% water change.

Nitrite is about 1.0 ppm at the moment. they have all been in there 2
weeks
now and *seem* OK so far.

Is there anything else i should be doing?

Thanks Guys


Sounds like you are doing fine - just keep an eye on the Nitrite level - it
will rocket up very quickly. You need some in the tank otherwise the thing
will never cycle but you need to keep both Ammonia and Nitrite under
control - and it sounds like you understand that.

You'll be able to accelerate the cycling process if you can get hold of
some "used" filter media from somewhere and stick that in the tank near the
filter inlet. Suggest you look into this becuase otherwise you will be in
for 4-5 weeks of water changes before it stabilises.

rgds

I.