Setting up a new African Cichlid Tank

[CornBread]

I have a 55 gallon that I had oscars in until last night when I put them in their new 120 and I thought well what the hell just make a new home for some of my africans. The issue is that I have put one bag of 20 lbs live bacteria african cichlid sand in the tank with the present black gravel and my levels are pretty high right now just want to know when it would be safe to put some fish in the tank and what can I do to hurry the process.

Levels are as followed:
Ammonia .25 - .5
Nitrate 10
Nitrite 1.0
PH 7.8 8.0

I have the temp at 80 and have added the salt to half recommended per gallon cause of the new setup and the live sand. I have 2 emps 400 and a canister filter which is on standby just thinking if I need it on there or not.

 

[CornBread]

Someone please let me know what to do before I mess up

 

[PostalPenguin]

Did you move the filter for the oscars to the new 120? What kind of filter do you have?

I have instantly cycled all my tanks by taking a chunk of cycled sponge and sticking it in the new filter. So if you can, take a decent sized piece of the filter media from your already established filter and stick it in the filter for the 55. Do a partial water change(~50%) and you should be fine.