Cycling with fish

[biggie]

I have a 75 gallon with a 405 and a HOB 110, 2 large Oscars, For the last 5 weeks i have been trying to grow new bacteria, so in march i added a full basket of bio media to my fluval 405, and in April i added the HOB full of media. my Ammonia readings have been very high so i have been doing daily water changes sometimes every 36 hours. About a week ago i started getting Nitrite readings and nitrate readings. Today they are ammonia 0 Nitrite 5 and nitrate 80 so i did a 50 percent water change, If this is normal for my situation how do i not mess it up from here. thanks

[Cliff]

Sounds like you are moving along nicely. I would suggest a extra water change to get the nitrates well below 40ppm (below 20 would be best)

[pjaldave]

You know 2 oscars need more room than a 75G, right?

In anyways, your cycle is just getting along fine. Cycling with fish takes longer than fishless so you might be cycling up to 2 months.

Keep up with those water changes. As already said, you want nitrates to be below 40ppm.