Okay this is what was told by the petstore:
Limit it to 1 20% water change per week
NO see below
when doing water change rinse the media in the water that comes out?
Yes ONLY was filter media in old tank water but not needed every water change (see below)
2 flakes of food per fish once a day
- feed fish just enought that they can eat all the flake within a min wouldnt say just 2 flake each only aswhen your tank is cycled and you feed the fish more, they will produce more waste and the filter will be thinking wow whats this were not ready for this yet and you will then have a mini cycle, i would say feed your fish as you will be when the tank is cyced.
add 2 caps of cycle per 3 days
Not really needed see below.
add stress coat 1ce a week
is good i use it myself when doing water changes and introducing new fish
what do you think? go with that or do you suggest different?
and yea i'll get myself an amonia tester too
Would a live plant help at all, or are they best to maintain the nitrate level when the cycle has finished?
adding live plants now is ok !!!, live plants feed off of nitrates so will help cycle a tiny iny bit but removing some nitrate that they feed off of.
and should i set up a 30L tank as a reserve tank incase things happen? is this what they call a Q - tank? or hospitol (or hospital) tank, omg i forgot how to spell hospitol (hospital) dictionary here i come!
A hospital tank is always a good idea, see below for more info.
taylor.
because your cycling with fish in if you leave the water to only 1 change of 20% per week you will kill all the fish strait away. you need the amonia test kit to test the water every day, u need to be keeping ammonia to 0, Ammonia Burns the skin of fish, whyle the tak is cycling you need to test the water, if u get an ammonia read do a 20% water change, (this is likley be needed every single day for a few weeks) when you find that the water reads are showing 0 and its been a day since u changed the water it means you are pretty much cycled, test again later that day and if still 0 this is good.
now check the nitrite and the nitrate, again nitrite should be 0 (this suffocates the fish). if nitrite is found again do a 20% water change (while you have ammonia you will have nitrites)
When it comes to nitrates, these are not as bad to fish, try and keep the nitrate to below 50ppm preff less than 20ppm, t this stage you will now be doing weekly / fortnightly water changes and you tank has cycled, this can however take a few weeks.
If you are able to find anyone close by friends or lfs or even a donor from this forum who can give you some old and matured filter media this can speed the cycle up and can take as little as 2 / 3 days.
when you are doing the water changes both during cycle and normal also use a syphon / gravel vac and suck up the waste and uneaten food and poop this will cut donw on the ammnia in the tank when cycling.
you dnot need to be washing out the filter media unless it is looking gunked up or if you notice reduced flow, as the lfs has said when you wash oout the media DO NOT USE TAP WATER !!!!!!, wash the media out in the old tanks water !!!, Chloramine and chlorine in the tap water and unconditioned water kills the bacteria and will put you back to the start.
With cycle you to be honest dont realy need it !! alot of it is sold o people saying it will cycle your tank quicker but i=IMO it doesnt, you have fish producing waste aka ammonia that will cycle the media, you cant bottle the bacteria as it needs constant flowing water and the ammonia to keep it alive, You cant bottle that lol.
Hosptial / QT tank, these are always usefull for those JUST INCASE moments or adding new stock, when getting or looking for a qt tank you want to make sure that it is bg enough to house the largest fish you have when at adult hood, so if your largest fish can survive in a 30L then 30L will be fine.
a hospital tank / qt tank doesnt need to be kept up and running all the time but does still need to have a matured filter, there are a few ways of going about this, some people run a secondary filter in their main tank and when the QT / hospital tank is needed they take some water from the main and put into the QT then top the rest of the QT up with fresh (de chlorinated water) then ad heater and put the fish into the tank, when the tank is not needed they empty the water and put the filter back into the main tank.
The other optioon th one that i prefoer is, instead of running 2x filters in 1 tank i take the media out of the filter housing for my QT and put it into the housing of my main tank so i have both medias in the same canister, (this is not always poss for all tanks as may not have enough space for "spare media" in the filter housing)
When i need to set up my QT i take out the "Spare media" put it back into the smaller housing for the QT filter and agin take some main tank water and put in the QT and top up with fresh de chlorinated water. whn im done and the filer media has not been used to teat desiese i put the media back in my main canister filter fot the main tank, this way i dont need a 2nd housing running in th main tank.
I mainly use my QT tank for new stock, it is best that when you get new fish to put them into the QT tank for 2 weeks jut incase any illness desies apears, this way if it does it wont affect and possibly wipe ut your main tank.
Scott
to the forum taylorlaud19!!! 
) uh i had the tank set up started the cycle with fish food? raised the temp up a little too used conditioner and cycle, then on the 7th day i introduced the fish to the tank. i will do a test for you now and tell you the results :
. they advised me to go back with a water sample in 2 weeks to see how the cycle is going too. but with the help of this forum and good info from you guys i hope things go well.
