Water analysis help, first time cycling

[Heavenly Jumper]

Hi all :) I'm cycling my 6 gallon and for the first week it ran with no fish just for me to be sure that all the parts were working and for me to let the bubbles settle.

The second week I have had 3 male (sometimes 2 when I lost one) guppies and a very tiny dark colored snail in the tank. They are at most one inch long and almost finished growing according to the fish keeper at the shop. The tank is at 78˚F. I did my first water change today of about 25% before testing the water.

Here are my water results today using the API Freshwater master test kit.

PH - 8.0
Ammonia - .25
Nitrate - 2.0
Nitrite - 10

How am I doing? Are things going how they are supposed to? Should I test every day?

[MadameDesu]

I'm new to cycling too, but I do know that your stats should be
0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, and a smidge of nitrate.
This means that the bacteria have converted the ammonia into nitrite, and the nitrite into nitrate.
You're on your way, but you're not there yet. pH is a little high, but that shouldn't be a huge problem.

[thekoimaiden]

Any reading of ammonia or nitrIte is bad. Do another water change as soon as possible as those levels of ammonia and nitrite are stressful for your fish. And stressed fish are sick fish. With a fish-in cycle you really need to test daily. Any time you get a reading of ammonia or nitrite you should do a water change. This could mean daily water changes or you could only have to do a change ever other day, but you won't know until you test the water.

You should also test your tap water as sometimes tap water can have ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate in them. That will let us know where that reading of nitrate came from.

And I would actually drop the temp back to 75F. Most people don't know this but guppies prefer temps lower than 80F. They will live longer and fare better in the long-term in the lower 70F range. Your pH, however, is perfectly fine for guppies as they like hard, alkaline water.