I recently set up my 55 gallon tank two weeks ago. The LFS gave me the advice of stocking my tank to get the cycling process going. After reading other peoples advice, it seems I was given some possible bad advice. I have 1 demasoni, 1 yellow auratus, 1 bumble bee, 1 yellow lab, 1 peacock, 1 convict, and 1 firemouth. I know now it probably isn't the best mixture but the local LFS told me otherwise. I already lost 1 jewel to what looked like fin rot. She had a clamped fin and was swimming erratic before she died. Now my auratus is ill, breathing heavy and not swimming straight. My ammonia is constant at 1, nitrates and nitrites are 0, and ph is 7.8. I have been doing water changes daily of no more 25%. Should I treat the tank with melafix or just continue water changes daily and cut back feedings to once a day? I can't return any fish or properly move to my sick tank, since the sick tank is only a few days old too. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I had 2 africans die on me, 1 for no reason and 1 because of tail rot. I tried to use Melafix but I didn't catch it fast enough. Try and get your ammonia down to 0 and I think the convict cichlid won't work with the africans, since its from central america, but I haven't kept cichlids for a long time, so they might be compatible.

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50 Bowfront, 2 Acei, 2 Yellow Labs, 1 Orange, 1 Albino, 2 Blue African Cichlids
30 Gal, 3 Fantail Goldfish, 1 Black Ryukin, 1 Common Pleco
20 Gal, Mollies, Platies, Cories, Algae Eaters
15 Gal, Swordtails, Balloon Mollies, Rasboras
10 Gal, 2 Knight Gobies
10 Gal, 2 Bolivian Rams
1.5 Gal, Male Betta

I cut back feeding to every other day with my Cichlids and Puffers. And when I had my ammonia spike I was doing 8g water chnages each day. Took about a week for the ammonia to come down to .5. Now I'm doing water changes once a week. I also think you may have over stocked the tank from the start and could have stressed the fish and made a few pass. How are things on the tank now? Anymore fish loss or are they acting funny?

I'm pretty sure the firemouth is also from south America. From what I've been told you are not to keep the 2 types of fish together because they will be aggressive, twards each other more then they usually are, and and you will end up losing some.