Was wondering about water changes?

[Fishmanic]

Did you ever formally cycle your tank by using ammonia and following our "how to cycle" thread? If you did not do this, it is too late to do that now - you would now be doing a fish-in cycle. DO NOT add ammonia at this stage but you will be needing to do very large water changes whenever your ammonia or nitrites exceed zero. Adding cycled media from another tank would help speed up the cycling. Also adding lots of additional plants include floating plants would help. Bottle bacteria may also help speed up the cycling.

Do you have other tanks that you can take some cycled media from?

Rescuing A Fish In Cycle Gone Wild - Part I

RESCUING A FISH IN CYCLE GONE WILD Part I If you are reading this it means you have tried to cycle your tank using fish and have run into problems and don’t know what to do. Before we begin to discuss the potential solutions, we would like to make it clear that we do not recommend to...

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[Byron]

I'm a bit confused here...the initial question was how to avoid ammonia increasing when the new fish were added. Answers to Colin's and other members' questions determined that the tank is cycled (after 8 months with fish in it, it must be). Adding new fish should not cause a mini-cycle, ammonia (and nitrite) should remain at zero. There are also live plants, including a few floating plants, and you can expect these to easily remove any ammonia the new fish will produce.

So, to answer your latest question in post #15, you do not need to do anything beyond what you've done; you have tested ammonia and nitrite and they are zero, and the plants are growing. Water changes should continue regularly, being once a week with 50-60% volume as someone I think recommended.

 

[Fishmanic]

How long ago were the fish added? Did you add all the fish at once?

 

[Ravenes]

I added the white skirts about 6 months ago then waited for a few months to add albino corydoras then waited a few more after to put in thick lipped gouramis, then after a week of adding those I added in cherry barbs. I was thinking of adding more albinos but didn’t know if this will overstock my tank

 

[Fishmanic]

You're pretty close to fully stocked but a couple more albinos may be ok. Seeing you added the fish gradually over several months, your tank is most likely fully cycled. If you do 50% water change once a week, you should be fine The Beneficial Bacteria should be established enough to process any ammonia and nitrites in the tank. Just check the nitrates occasionally and keep that below 20 ppm.