Fish In Cycle Advice

[eduller]

Hello - I know a fish in cycle is not recommended. I've learned since I started this aquarium, but the fish are here and I'm committed to finishing this.
 
Background - 5.5 gallon tank, 3 glofish/danios, 2 golden snails. I have city tap water. Medium hardness. No detectable ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates in the tap water. I have the API fresh water testing kit. 
 
Tank stats - Small heater keeps it at 78 degrees. PH stays at 7.4-7.8. I have the filter that came with the tank which I removed the carbon chunks and replaced them with Eheim crushed lava rock. I also have 2 small live plants which are in good shape - no obvious discoloration, nice and green. I test for ammonia twice a day, change water 1-2 times a day, depending on the ammonia readings. The ammonia hasn't gotten above .50 with this routine in a couple of weeks. I had 2 days where I got 0 ammonia but it came back. The nitrates have slowly decline to 0, and there is very rarely any nitrite detected. 
 
I tested just ammonia this morning and it was below .25ppm. This evening, I did a full test, and the ph was 7.4, ammonia was between .25 and .5ppm, nitrate was 0, nitrite looked slightly off from 0. I did a 2.5 gallon water change, added 3 1/4 tsp of aquarium salt to protect the fish from ammonia/nitrite - calculating this by .75 tsp per gallon of water - is this correct? I put the salt in an emptied out jimmy container with holes in the lid. It usually takes a couple days for all the salt to dissolve this way - on the advice of a dude at my LFS (not a chain store but it also wasn't the "good" LFS so I'm hoping this was good advice).
 
I have read both that it's really important to do consistent large water changes with fish-in cycling AND that it's bad to do water changes because it can stress out the fish. Well, the fish seem to love it so I have been doing it to keep the toxins cleared out of the tank. They swim around the gravel vacuum/water changer. They dart in and out of the stream of water when I'm refilling. They are very active, bright colors. No signs of stress, no weird spots on them, no red gills, etc. The snails are fine too as far as I can tell. I am feeding them all very sparingly - every other day or so. 
 
Is there anything else I should be doing? I have technically had this tank 2 months now, but about 3-4 weeks in (before I found this form), I decided the tank needed to be cleaned, and I changed out the filter media, washed the gravel in vinegar, etc. which I'm sure started the cycling process over. 
 
I have already purchased a larger 55 gallon tank, ammonia drops, 2 filters (one canister and one I made myself), heater, substrate, etc., so it's ready to go, but I haven't started fishless cycling it yet - mainly because I had foot surgery last week and haven't been very mobile. I'm going to start that cycling hopefully next week when the stitches come out, but I was hoping this tank would finish so I could take some filter media to start the process. I am going to lightly plant the larger tank, but I've also read some extremely confusing and contradictory advice on whether or not it's okay to plant during a fishless cycle, so I'm hoping to read more carefully and draw my conclusions to decide what to do about that. 

I also have an air pump and a bubble tube if that makes any difference. 

 

[kahira]

do you use a dechlorinater like prime when adding water? If not you should because the heavy metals and chorine in your tap are harmfull and the chlorine will kill what ever bacteria you may have. also, like you found out, do not completely remove filter media, you're throwing away your bacteria. When your media is.... litterally falling apart, or looking pretty close to, then you can change it by sliding in a new piece ALONSIDE the old. that way the new media will be seeded by the old.
 
Most people don't recommend using aquarium salt. Someone else can chip in with more detail on it.
 
I feel 78F is a bit high.. mos fish like their temperature in the middle of their range. Danios prefere a range of 68-75... so 78 is a bit high. I'd drop it down to 70-73F
 
When fish-in cycling you need to stay on top of water changes. Sure it can stress your fish but think of it this way: Would you rather have ammonia burn your fish's gills? Or would you rather stress them a bit for 20-30 minutes a day to make sure they have as 'top-notch' water quality as possible?
 
When/if you move your fish into that 55g... up that school to 6+.
(personally... i hate glofish... at least the way they came to be.... if you don't know how they came to be, look it up. It's really horrible and sad)
 
P.S. as long as your filter agitates the water surface there is plenty of oxygen in the water, but a bubbler is always nice incase the filter fails, keeps the water oxygen-ated.

 

[eduller]

Yes, I do use a dechlorinator. I had been using the API tap water conditioner, but I got some Prime last week which I have been using since.
 
I definitely know now not to remove the filter media, but unfortunately I didn't always so I'm sure that stalled my cycle.
 
If I remove the little heater, the water does hover around 72, but I added the heater because I thought the heat needed to be a little higher during cycling? Maybe I misread that somewhere but that's an easy fix.
 
Obviously I'm not interested in having ammonia burn my fish's gills, which is both why I have been continuing with water changes and why I'm on here for advice
 
I will definitely up the school to 6 when I move them. I do know how glofish came about, and I have no moral objections to them or find it horrible at all. They didn't grab a fish out of the wild and shove a needle into it, btw. An embryo was genetically modified for a useful and specific purpose. I personally find this no different than the 1,000s of years farmers have cross-bred animals and plants to create hybrids with desirable traits. But we're not here to have a moral debate I suppose, And they are now used as pets and bred naturally. And I find them to be very friendly and happy little guys. 

 

[kahira]

during cycling yes, higher heat will help the bacteria colonize faster. I guess if you're fish seem fine it's not much to worry about. Just for future reference.