Advice Needed ! Please Read !

[dan44762000]

i have finnally finnished cycleing my tank. and have added 3 neon tetras and three black tetras.
its a 70 litre tank.
the fish have been in two days now.
i am going to test water tomorow to see if there is any spike.
what i,d like to know is
1/ how often should i be cleaning the gravel ?
2/ how often should i be doing a partial water change ?
3/ i was told in store i could gradually add more fish upto (20) 1" ,how long should i leave those six on there own before i can add more and how many at a time would you suggest ?
its a community tank so any suggestions on what kind of fish to add remembering they cannot exceed 1" really.
thanks in advance daniel

i have done a test today using a master test kit the liquid one and i have the following
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
ammonia 0
ph 7.0- 7.5

wont be adding anymore new fish now till next friday 16th is that ok and i only plan on adding 3 maybe another kind of tetra or possibly some tiger barbs or maybe some kind of bottom feeder algae eater can they be kept on there own and which should i get as i dont want it being too big smaller the better really.

sorry so many questions but i do want to do this right.

 

[Colin_T]

Do a partial water change and gravel clean each week. Monitor the nitrates and if they go up rapidly during the week then do more frequent water changes.

If the tank was cycled without fish and the ammonia levels were around 5ppm during the process, you can add most, if not all the fish straight away. However, many people start off with a few fish to test the water so to speak. If they do alright then a few weeks later they add more. The problem of adding new fish every few weeks is you risk introducing diseases with each batch of fish. A quarantine tank is a good way to prevent diseases getting into an established tank.

As long as you feed thew fish in the tank you can add new fish anytime. The ones that are currently in there will keep the filters alive and you shouldn't get an ammonia or nitrite spike when you add more later on.