Not a bother at all, that's why this forum is here.
Unfortunately I don't know how long it will take to cycle your tank (i.e. how long Pinto will be homeless) as a normal cycle from square 1 can take 4-6 weeks. My hope is that you already have the start of the good bacteria colony in your tank, so it should be shorter because the bacteria grow exponentially (i.e. 1 colony becomes 2, then those 2 split to become 4, then those split to become 8, then 16, then 32, then 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024....... you get the idea). If there is already a few colonies in your tank, then with a good source of food (ammonia) they should really take off on growing. Even still I don't think it would be less then a week. My guess is it will be at least 3 weeks, but that's only a guess based on there being some good stuff already growing.
If you don't mind getting another conditioner, then yes stop using that one that messes with the pH. By the way, have you tested the pH of the water coming from your tap? I'm just curious what it is at? There are several good water conditioners out there, and since you aren't worried about ammonia here, you could use something like
Tetra's AquaSafe or
Kordon's NovAqua+. The NovAqua+ has some vitamins in it that even though there aren't any fish in the tank to take advantage of it now, down the road your fish might like it. But most of the conditioners are pretty good. I use
Prime in my tanks, but that is only because I cycled my tank with fish in it and like the added protection just in case something causes an ammonia spike in my tank (I have a reading of 1.0ppm ammonia right out of my tap which means more in my tank at every water change). Lots of options, these are just a few.
In the bucket or tank that you put Pinto, I would take the clam off the end of the pipe from your air pump and install an
airstone like this. I've seen them sold separately for 50 cents each, so they won't put a strain on the pocketbook. But the difference is that the claim usually fills up with air and then opens his mouth to let one large bubble out. Most of this is lost from the tank rather quickly without adding much to the surface area of the tank for long. The hundreds of tiny bubbles that the airstone will release will help with aeration much better.
Change the water 50% every other day is right. Feeding the 10 Gal every 12 hours is right. At the end of the cycle when nitrite and ammonia are at 0 again, check your nitrate. It will probably be in the 40ish range. A 50% water change should be enough to bring it into the 10ppm range, but you could do as much as a 70% water change just to be certain if you like. During this use the gravel vac to lightly vacuum the top of the substrate just to get rid of a lot of that left over fish food from the tank. Don't disturb the gravel at this point, save that for a later date.
Add Pinto and a couple of buddies so that the level of ammonia doesn't drop too much since you will have stopped adding food every 12 hours at this point. There should be plenty of it in the substrate still so it won't fall off too steeply, but still the fish waste will be what keeps the food supply for the good bacteria up. After a week of having the fish in there, and you do your first maintenance water change (to remove the nitrate that has built up over the week) vacuum out only half of the gravel. The following week only do a water change without disturbing the gravel with the siphon. Then the week after that, vacuum out the remaining half of the gravel. After that it's up to you when you want to clean the gravel, but you could really get by with only doing 1/4 of the tank every week when you do your weekly maintenance if you like.
Most importantly... Good Luck!
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gar.
Pinto is so lonely!!
