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When your tank is not cycled, you will get an ammonia spike followed by a spike in nitrites. That is probably the most likely. Read up on Fishless/Aquarium nitrogen cycling ... there needs to be a steady ammonia source in the tank (get pure ammonia (without scent & soaps) from a hardware store...

Did you notice him acting injured/sick right away, or only after you cleaned the filter? If you rinsed the filter in tap water or changed the media completely, you may have killed the beneficial bacteria in your tank that get rid of toxic fish waste. Without these bacteria, your fish may have...

It seems you are doing larger water changes now ... this is a good thing. Though traditional advice says that large water changes frequently are bad, in fact, they are much less stressful than leaving any amount of ammonia or nitrite in your water. I would not be afraid of doing as large of...

Nitrate levels aren't really that problematic until they get REALLY high. I would be more worried about nitrite and ammonia levels. These should be 0 ... any higher and you are risking damage to the fish, so they should be kept as low as possible until the tank is cycled.

Hrm ... one way to clean the gravel is just by using a siphon ... so its like a larger tube with a hose coming out of it .... you can use this to suck up water and "vacuum" the gravel at the same time (the water drains out of the hose and into a bucket, or the drain if you have a long hose like...

... hrm ... well I have a neon that seemed kind of weird looking when I got him - kind of crooked shape and stuff ... but I've had him for over a month with his schoolmates and he seems as healthy as the rest of them. If the fish seems otherwise healthy, it COULD be due to a birth defect...

Did you temperature match the water? (Sounds like a dumb question but obviously a large temp change could cause stress). What are your water parameters? (Nitrite, ammonia, nitrate?) Do you do regular water changes or is this the first one you've done in a while? I've heard that sometimes pockets...

What are the water parameters for your tank? Ammonia levels? Nitrite levels? By "cycled" I'm assuming you mean that you added a source of ammonia and did regular water testing which revealed that eventually all of the ammonia was being converted to nitrates, with no residual nitrite and ammonia...

Hrm ... I don't know if I'm alone in thinking this but even though cardinals and glowlights are fairly small, I think a 3G is too small of a tank to keep them happy. Generally it would be a better idea to get 6 of one kind of tetra as opposed to 3 of 2 types, simply because they like being in...

Well it sounds like you are at least armed with some knowledge now that should help you keep your fish alive. Generally, the most accurate test kits are the ones that use liquid drop reagents. A lot of people use and swear by the API Master Test Kit, which has tests for PH, ammonia, nitrites...

Hrm that's unfortunate ... some pet stores will at least take them back even if they wont give you credit. What about another pet store? Maybe try to post on Craigslist or Kijii and see if there is anyone with a really large tank who could take the pleco at least. Mollies and stuff are OK to be...

Honestly with a 7Gal tank, that many fish are already really overstocking, notwithstanding the fact that common plecos need massive tanks (and they can grow quite quickly). For that small of a tank, I'd say your best bet is to maybe have a betta or maybe JUST the tetras. Mollies just get too...