Okay, so I took a few fellow MFK'ers advice about my tank and since my Nitrate levels were non-existent in my 29g, I went ahead and started using Seachem Stability in my 125 and moved my four Africans to the new tank. Needless to say they are VERY happy fish now. No longer do they hide when I walk up to feed! Thanks for everyone's input and advice on everything!
Also, since I'm just starting out, I know a lot of you probably will think I'm making a mistake with this, but this early on, I don't feel comfortable buying expensive fish from an online or my LFS just yet. Soooo... for right now I'm sticking with the Petsmart fish. Granted these may not be the most exotic, not the brightest colors, but at this point I feel if I jump into buying expensive fish this early in he hobby for me and lose them, it might cause me to get fed up and quit. So for now I'm going to stick with the cheap and common fish for a while. I know eventually I am going to by some from my LFS or online, but I figure it won't kill me to start slow. After all, I got my FIRST tank (29g) 6 months ago, and already I've now jumped up to a 125 with a Wet/Dry, and started cycling a new 30g hex in my living room tonight for the wife!
Now with that being said, since these are 'Petsmart' fish, I can only guess at the true species of what I have for a couple, but I think I'm pretty close. Remember that all of these are less then 3in, and with my yellow zebra being about 2in. I know one of course is a Bumble bee, I'm assuming female since she hasn't turned black yet but it's still early. The Yellow Zebra I mentioned earlier, which seems to turn from yellow to orange sometimes? That's my best guess on that one. He's all yellow, with a very thin black strip on his top fin when it's fully erect. And then I've got 1 VERY dark reddish orange, then another lighter orange colored one. Take from those descriptions as you will.
Anyways, my plan is that since the instructions, and advice I've been given, using the Stability treatment is to treat for 7 days, then check my levels and if all is good, add fish! So I plan on this Thursday being my 7th day of dosing and will check my levels then. With only four 2-3in Cichlids in a 125g with a huge wet/dry underneath, I'm assuming a WC won't be needed yet, but I'll let the tests tell me that. If all goes well, I plan on adding, (all aprox the same size), another 2 Bumblebees, another 2 Yellow Zebras, one more Bright orange one, and three to four Acei Cichlids. I know I should take it slow in adding fish at one time, and with my 29g, I only added 2 at a time to make it easier on the 'load' in the tank. Any suggestions on how many I can add to the 125 at a time?
Placing all those rocks in the tank was scary enough without having to worry about them hitting the bottom and making me have a REALLY bad day!!!
