ive had an aquarium for about a week and half now.. before i put my fish in i didnt know i was supposed to?

Question

cycle the tank! i check the chemicals every two days to see if its ok.. and its been high on ammonia for the last few checks.. all nitrites and nitrates ph hardness are ok.. two neon tetras and 2 glass fish have died since then.. my two swordfish, 1 bala, 2 gouramis, snails, female betta seem to be just fine.. swimming around playing and whatnot.. are they going to die too cause i didnt cycle it? can i still cycle the tank? if so.. how do you recommend storing the fish or where until this tank is cycled? thanks. 10 gallon.

Answer 1

Well, your tank is in the process of cycling. Cycling means that you either introduce or develop the colonies or good bacteria that break down the toxic ammonia and nitrites that your fish produce into less toxic nitrAtes. In this case, you're using your fish to cycle the tank - they are producing ammonia, so the bacterial colonies are starting to develop and turning that ammonia into nitrites - which is why you see 0 nitrites at the moment, because the bacteria haven't transformed enough ammonia into nitrites yet, and you'll start seeing nitrites in about a week - and then into nitrates. It can take up to 6 weeks.
Your may lose more fish. You can help your fish by doing daily water changes - change about 15% of the water every day. This will help dillute and remove some ammonia. If you can find it, you can also buy bio-spira, which is the LIVE bacteria (not the dead, useless stuff found in products like Cycle and BioZyme) which will definitely boost your cycling.

The next step to helping your fish is properly stocking your tank. The petstore people probably told you those fish were okay together, but they are very wrong. The bala shark will grow longer than your tank is! Plus, they are schoolers. A school of balas needs at least 125 gallons.
The gouramis may also need to be returned to the petstore. Most gouramis are far too big for a 10 gallon tank (same goes for glass catfish, in case you were considering getting more). The exception would be dwarf gouramis - but only one per 10 gallons, as they can be a little aggressive with each other.
The swordtails are borderline okay for your tank. They do grow to 3-4" long and ideally they should be in a larger tank, but if you do weekly water changes and don't have too many other fish, it should be okay.

Answer 2

First of all you've got too many fish in a ten gallon. Before you added the fish you should have cycled the water. For now, don't put anymore fish in there. Do a partial water change every few days. Only replace the water with distilled water. And keep in mind that you should only have one inch of fish per gallon. The smaller the tank, the harder to maintain