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Hi, I had my 6 corycats and 3 guppies in a 10 gal tank. I wanted to expand, so I got myself a 26 bowfront. Treated with prime, and ran it for a couple days sans fish. Transferred my filter and plants but not the sand as I wanted to change color. So, new substrate. I just today added the old filter, media and plants along with the fish. I hope my bioload colonizes the new substrate pretty quickly. My guppies look fine but my Coreys look stressed. Anything I can do outside of daily water parameter checks to ensure they make it? I acclimated them slowly, made sure their tanks were the same temp. I\'m just a little worried about the catfish. They\'re just sitting there, not being their active selves.

Transferring filter media was a good start. To boost the process of the cycle, take a few handfuls of the old sand, assuming it hasn't dried out yet, and mix it in with the new substrate. That will give the substrate a seed to begin rebuilding the bacterial colonies there.

Until the bacterial colonies are reestablished, I would perform a daily 10% water change to keep ammonia levels below the stress level of the fish, but keep some in for the bacteria to use in order to grow. The ammonia levels in the tank is what's probably stressing out the catfish. Perform an initial 25% change as soon as you can, and a daily 10% after that, testing the water every day before the change.

The level of ammonia that will begin to stress your fish is right around 6 ppm. If you can keep it below that during the cycling process, your fish should be fine.

Yeah, I can't really mix the substrate. I switched from white to black sand. I don't want to mix the colors. But the rest, I'll do. I have also had good luck with sea gems stability in the past so I'll do that too. I think much cories are traumatized by the netting. They were so hard to catch. Ammonia is still 0.

You don't want to remove all ammonia. If you do that, it seriously slows down the process, if not stops it, of establishing the nitrogen cycle. Removing every trace of ammonia is counterproductive of getting the nitrogen cycle going, and you're going to be constantly buying products that aren't necessary.

If you can keep the ammonia at right about 4 ppm, you'll get the cycle going, without harming your fish, and standard weekly water changes and substrate cleaning will be all the maintenance you'll need to worry about. There's also the added benefit of not exposing your fish to chemicals.

Whether the chemical is labeled to be safe for fish, I still prefer not to use them if it isn't necessary. My personal opinion is that the only chemical that should ever be added to an aquarium is a medicine. If you ever do have to use a medicine, it's time to start doing some serious evaluations. Check water quality, check out any recently bought decorations or substrates that could have had tagalongs, particularly check out the fish shop you buy from. A lot of diseases are introduced to your aquarium through newly added fish that weren't quarantined for at least 2 weeks before adding them to the aquarium.

If you can't afford or don't have space to set up a quarantine, what I use is a 36 gallon plastic toat from a dollar store. Set it up with substrate, heater and filter just like a normal aquarium and cycle it. A quarantine tank does need to be cycled. Don't spend a lot of money on substrate from a pet store. I use play sand from a hardware store. Just make sure you clean it thoroughly. If you need to medicate a single fish, you can move it to a hospital tank, or in my case a 2 gallon trash can. A hospital tank does not need to be cycled, and can be set up and broken down as needed.