I'm sure you have said this before Mr.Tailer but I can't quite remember but how big is your tank?? That could be the main source of all your problems OR you should test your water you are using to fill up the tank, some local water has quite bad readings and when you are trying to fix the problem with water changes well sometimes it can make it worse. Supposedly my local water has ammonia in it and I can never get my ph lower than 7.6.

It seems to be taking so long to cycle, I had the mini cycle going for a few weeks but it is gone now due to water changes and also waiting. I also use stress zyme which I like but I think there is better products out there Throughout my mini cycle my Sunshine was absolutely 100% fine, some fish are just strong but prolonged exposure would not be good.

I have no experience with ammonia lock just remember it doesn't actually get rid of the ammonia so the problem isn't gone. I think it can also mess with the water tests so I dunno, if your fish is 100% I wouldn't use it. But we'll see what everyone else says.

The tank is 10 gallons with just the one adorable squishy fish, Mr. Tailer. I must agree Andrea about the prolonged exposure which at this point is my greatest concern. I tested my tap water through a Brita filter unit and it contains appox. 0.25 ammonia and some days it is as high as 0.50 I don't know why it has increased as it was zero a month ago. That is why I added the Ammo Lock now as I can't seem to win with the tap water. The pH remains between 7.0 and 7.5 Tailer is very hearty and so chipper everytime I walk into the room. Thanks for your input Mindemae I will continue small changes daily and I bought some Top Fin Bacteria Supplement. Is that the same as adding Nutrafin Cycle though?? Can you add too much of this stuff?? So many products when I stand in the aquarium aisles at the pet store, it is very confusing Thanks for your advice as well

I use this "Stability" a Seachem brand, with every waterchange. They also recommend to add it daily for the first week if the tank is not cycled.

Thank you for sharing your successes with various products, at times all the bottles on the shelf become a blur in the petstores - this helps so much to hear about your own experiences Nitrites this morning were just above the 0.3 mark in colour chart so another water change about 5 gallons out of the 10 gallons in the tank. Now they are between 0.1 and 0.3 so a little better. Added more ammo lock as the ammonia read as 0.50 as well and now it is down to 0.25. Added cycle directly to filter media and there is a bubble stone bubblin' away. Mr. Tailer is active and begging for food but I'm limiting the grub I put in for him. The temp is sitting around 72 degrees and cleaned some of the gravel during the water change.