Cycling a 5 Gal Nursery Tank

Hi everyone, I'm very new here. I'm Kathy, I'm a 26yo hobbyist from Maine. I've been keeping Mollies & easy hardy fish for about 5 years. I upgraded to a 20 Gal about 2 months ago (phew just got done cycling) i started from scratch with this one. I added a few new females to my tank & 1 gold Panda molly had babies 2 weeks after I bought her. So I salvaged an old 5 gallon I had sitting around & started it up. My problem is -- my main tank was not cycled completely then so I took gravel & water from main tank & added it to nursery tank. I've been testing the nursery tank every morning & these are the results:
Ammonia: 0-0.25ppm
Nitrite: 1.0-2.0ppm
NitrAte: 20ppm
Hardness: very hard
Chlorine: 0
PH: 7.4
Alkalinity: moderate
Temp: always 78°-80°
& I keep it slightly brackish, I add 1/8th teaspoon aquarium salt with water changes. The Nitrites keep staying up. I'm using API fresh master kit for Nitrites, Nitrates, ammonia & ph. Dip strips for hardness chlorine ECT. Nursery tank has been running for 2 weeks. I've been doing a lot of research & others are saying 5 gal are too small to cycle, I'm doing daily water changes of 2.5 gals & adding 5 drops of Prime when needed. Will it cycle?
& all babies are silver when their mother is black & orange lol this is my 1st batch of molly fry ever, I only kept males in past, they are 1 month old fry, so I'm assuming they'll stay silver & white, I saved 15 fry only 11 made it though.
Below is 2 photos of nursery.

 

You definitely can cycle a 5 gallon tank. Right now you are doing a fish in cycle and even more important you have fry in this tank. If this were my tank I would be changing out no less than 50% of the water every day. Fry emit a growth hormone that can stunt their growth. The water changes will keep that hormone diluted.

Along with the growth hormone you are also dealing with ammonia and nitrites in this tank so the water changes are even more critical. Cycling the tank is important but right now the most important thing is the health of the fish.

 

Yes it will cycle. A betta cup will cycle so a 5 gallon will have no real issues. They are harder to mantain than larger tanks tho. As far as the mollie fry color, you probably have a good amount of throwback genes for wild colors, so that's what you're seeing in them.

 

You definitely can cycle a 5 gallon tank. Right now you are doing a fish in cycle and even more important you have fry in this tank. If this were my tank I would be changing out no less than 50% of the water every day. Fry emit a growth hormone that can stunt their growth. The water changes will keep that hormone diluted.

Along with the growth hormone you are also dealing with ammonia and nitrites in this tank so the water changes are even more critical. Cycling the tank is important but right now the most important thing is the health of the fish.

Okay, thanks. I've been changing out exactly 2.5 gallons everyday for a week straight. So I hope I'm doing everything right. They seem okay. 4 fry are huge, 3 are runty & the rest are in between sizes. I just want them to survive this nitrite spike!

 

Okay, thanks. I've been changing out exactly 2.5 gallons everyday for a week straight. So I hope I'm doing everything right. They seem okay. 4 fry are huge, 3 are runty & the rest are in between sizes. I just want them to survive this nitrite spike!

Perfect. Sometimes it seems like the nitrites will never drop and then one day almost like magic you will see that beautiful blue in the test tube.