post what your reading are, also if you are using test strips, go get yourself a liquid test kit, i bought a master (lol) FW kit today for $24.00 at pet smart.
cycling with fish damages them, and in some cases kills them. If you bought these fish specifically to cycle with then leave things alone, i would cut down on feeding, (the puff balls are probably pieces of food covered with bacteria)
if you want to keep those fish i would do a 25% water change every other day until your tests read as follows
ammonia = 0.0
nitrite = 0.0
nitr
Ate = 15 - 20
it is best to do 25% water change each week, but at the very least do not allow your nitr
Ates to go over 20 ppm
it sounds like you are about half way through your cycle, very soon you will quit reading ammonia all together then your nitrite will peak, (read off the scale) keep up water changes 25% every other day.
get yourself a python
http://www.pythonproducts.com/
it will make tank maintance a ton easer, (you can also get a waterbed filler from wal-mart, it's just about the same thing)
my 2 cents