I posted this in another thread too I am in dire need of help. 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% and I was using prime. I then was told to switch to stress coat and add stress zyme to my tank. I am worried I may be screwing up my cycle too. 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

Cut the feedings back,and do a large waterchange.This is most likely caused by the cycle process and many fish really cannot handle it.

How big are these fish?Any chance you can get a pic of the tank and affected fish?

My best advice is to keep the water changes going.

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They are all around 2". I have a picture of the tank but not the fish. How much water change can my fish and tank handle? Once or twice daily? Use prime or just stress coat for cloramine? I have city treated water. I have thirteen various sized plants, and four rock and other decorations. I'll have to upload the picture when I get home and am on my computer. My phone won't let me upload.

I'm a new fish keeper but have other experience with biologic systems and disease.
On a tank being cycled with fish there are two goals which are not compatible with each other. You need to have ammonia present to induce and maintain a culture of bacteria which will detoxify the ammonia to nitrite, then a new set of bacteria need to become established to metabolize the nitrite to less harmful nitrate. Ammonia in any significant concentration is absolutely toxic to higher animals, nitrite is also harmful but it acts by causing a change in the blood that prevents the efficient transport of oxygen so some on-going exposure is tolerable and the effects are reversible. The point of the water changes is to keep the ammonia and nitrite at levels that are minimally harmful to your animals until enough bacteria is present to metabolize them so quickly the levels become undetectable. There seems to be a tendency among newer fish keepers, at least those who post on this site, to want to add all kinds of chemicals to cycling tanks to take care of perceived problems but adding anything to your water except anti chlorine agents is likely to be counterproductive. The fish aren't doing well because of the ammonia, the only way to help them is to keep the levels low with water changes. If you detoxify the ammonia with chemicals the bacterial colonization will be stalled and you'll never get cycled. Treating sick fish in a high ammonia environment with anything but water changes is futile--literally throwing money down the drain with your water changes. So the bottom line is to keep up with the water changes until cycling is complete if you have fish in the tank.
Again, I'm relatively new to fish keeping but the science behind cycling seems pretty straight-forward and the issues that keep cropping up on this forum seem to be related to initial overstocking, keeping up with water changes and having the patience to wait for nature to do it's work.
Just my $0.02 and worth all of that.

I have heard that Melafix is a bad thing to use, along with any other chenicals in your tank if it's cycling. How big is your tank?

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Never start cycling with Cichlids. They produce too much waste and are not hardy enough for cycling. At a ph of 7.8 livebearers are best. Use 1 fish per 5 gallons. If you are interested in Brackish water, try Mollies. You can also try Female Bettas, they seem to endure almost any water conditions. Add plants if you can, Val does very well in high ph water. Java Fern also would do great. Feed very little the first 3 weeks. Try flighless Fruit flies. they are live and don't pollute.

I think my firemouth has fin rot....