New tank owner

[Eslireyes]

Hi guys. Im a first time fish owner. Been watching a lot of videos to help with the cycling process.
I have a 55 bow front gallon tank. I added a few fish to help with the process, it has been about 4 weeks with the fish in the tank.
My nitrite levels are up high, my nitrate levels are not as high.
I dont want my fish to die, but i am lost at this point.
I dont know if my cycling process is going the way it is supposed to but i believe it is.
Im wondering what do I do at this point ?
How much longer till the cycle is complete ? I just did a water change and the nitrite levels are sort of high. I test it with the testing strips and the nitrate is at 20 - 40 ppm and nitrite is about 3-4 ppm.

 

[Wansui]

It's unfortunate that you've added live fish into an aquarium that has not yet completed its cycle, as both ammonia and nitrite are extremely toxic to fish, but whats done is done. All I can advise is frequent water changes and careful monitoring of ammonia and nitrite levels. This thread has a more in depth discussion about fish in cycling, I would highly advise you to read it.

An aquarium from my experience usually takes around six to eight weeks to cycle from scratch, so it'll probably be a few more weeks until your aquarium is capable of dealing with the bio load from the fish, but please note that I've never done fish in cycling so this may not apply to you. In the future please use an artificial ammonia source to cycle an aquarium. With an artificial source of ammonia you can directly control the amount of ammonia entering the aquarium, thus making the cycling processes both easier on you and the fish.

For more information about cycling an aquarium without fish, read here

 

[seangee]

Unfortunately once you have fish in there is nothing you can do to speed up the process. Keep up with daily water changes and keep testing daily until both ammonia and nitrite are zero. Test before you change water so you know what is in your tank rather than what is in the tap. Unless you are using test strips there is actually not much point in testing for nitrAte until the other 2 are both at 0.