hey
glad he seems to be on the mend. if still having difficulty swimming feed the pea again and starve him for a day.
i would feed him every other day only a FEW pellets (i assume thats what hes eating atm). will cut down on waste until the filter can handle it.
as far as how do you know when its cycled, you have to test the water for ammonia nitrite and nitrate. when ammonia and nitrIte show 0 after a test (assuming you didnt test after a huge waterchange) youre good to go. if you are getting your own test kit API liquid kit is great and you can find it in almost any store. do not buy strips! inaccurate and a waste of money.
i feel for you being in college. i bet your broke
so if you have a fish store around see if they will test your water for you for free (and make sure they use liquid not strips)...as long as you keep up waterchanges for a month, dont overfeed the fish and vacuum the substrate with a syphon, you should be pretty much set in a month to 6 weeks with little worry. then you can stop doing every/other day changes and stick to 30% once a week.
best of luck and glad to have helped
fyi- do NOT clean your filter in this time. dont replace anything. dont change the substrate. filter pads only need to be replaced when they are literally falling apart (months of use). if the filter flow lessens you clean it by swishing it around in the waterchange bucket with water FROM the waterchange. but this shouldnt really apply during cycling. some fiters can go months before theyre gunked up. also, a well colonized filter sponge will be brown, not white. another good indication that the filter has cycled (just dont count the gunk stuck to it as the brown stuff...the media itself will appear to be brown)
cheers
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