Moved aquarium is cycling ammonia levels are high and fish are stressed am i doing the right things?

Moved in and already had about 11fish some small some big in a 60 gallon tank..used ammonia clear tested water everday did partial water changes once a week for the first 2 weeks..put conditioning salt. i have ammonia and nitrite the first stages in cycling used ammo lock since ammonia clear cannot just be dropped into tank of 40 gallons or more. woke up in 2nd week tank very cloudy. guy at pet store tells me it sounds like you have too many fish and not a big enough filter. the cloudyness is ammonia i presume so i get a new filter. doesnt that get rid of all the bacteria i just already had but still i had too many fish that was producing so much waste..i vaccumed gravel and did a 25% change and put the bigger filter. i decided to get rid of half my fish i think they had a better chance at the fish store than in my ammonia filled tank. i kept the ones i like but decresed my fish by 50% will this help me i put stress coat in and did another vaccumm and partial change advice!!!!|||First, you aren't supposed to get fish until your tank is fully cycled for at least one week. You have to give it time to grow beneficial bacteria. Also, the cloudy stuff in the water isn't ammonia- it's a bacteria bloom. Do you turn the light off at night? Make sure you do because leaving the light on too much causes a build up of bacteria and algae. Secondly, you are only supposed to do a water change every two weeks- if you do it more you are taking out too much beneficial bacteria to the fish. Make sure you are using water condtioner and bacteria supplement with each water change and also use the gravel vaccum during the water change (since the gravel vaccum takes out water just clean the gravel and it will take out 25% of the water).|||you should not have added any ammonia "destroyer" or cleaned your tank for two weeks. You need to let your ammonia level build up so that it can be converted into nitrites and then into nitrates-finishing the cycle of your tank.





The cloudiness is normal, and Good!!! When it got cloudy it meant that your tank was building beneficial bacteria. if your tank is overstocked the cloudiness will not go away with small water changes.





It is difficult to tell you if your fish is really overstocked because you did not post what fish you have. I would recommend that you do not trust commercial pet places, the people there can barley catch a fish, never mind care for one.|||Unless you have some very large fish, 11 fish isn't too much. It would depend on what the "big" fish are. If they are large, then yeah, you may have too many fish and not a large enough filter. But that we can't address without knowing what you have. The rule for filtration for tropicals is that the filter should move 4 times the water as the size of the tank. So, for a 60 gallon tank, you need a 240 gph filter. The cloudy stuff is a bacteria bloom and that's a good thing. It means the water is doing its thing. Just keep an eye on your readings. And you don't need to add bacteria with every water change. Between the original bacteria you added, your fish and the food, you have enough catalyst to start the process. As far as cycling, stop with the ammonia clear and ammo lock and all the other "ammonia controlling" products. These give you false readings on your ammonia. What they do is not get rid of the ammonia, all they do is bind the ammonia in an agent that temporarily reduces its severity, so, in an emergency situation, it can be okay, but the ammonia is still there and still needs to cycle. When you use this, because the binding agent "hides" the ammonia, you don't get a true reading of what you have. So, your tests may say no ammonia when you actually do have ammonia. As long as you're cycling with fish, you are just going to have to weather this through. Test your water every day and do your 20-30%, maybe 50%, water changes every 2-3 days, maybe every day, until your water cycles. When cycling a tank, there is no "regular" routine of when you're supposed to do water changes. You do water changes when you get high ammonia and/or nitrite readings. Every day if necessary. It's going to take a long time. At least 4 weeks, but most likely more like 8 weeks. So, patience, a lot of testing and good maintenance is the key.