cycling is no longer your issue, it's done a while back (your non digital test kits have delays in reporting compared to digital nh3 kits)
based on the # of days running plus your ammonia drop reported, even the non digital test kits now agree it's ready.
the risk to your fish now lies in the preps from the stickies in the disease forum, you're about to skip past those crucial steps. (fallow and quarantine)
read that thread if you want to keep your fish alive the longest vs replace them every few months
you add fish last, not first, to avoid having to use a separate tank to fallow prep every single item you'll add from a pet store coming up, and that's a lot of items. hardly anyone will adhere to what they're reading above, which is why on any given day the disease forum is chock full of loss help posts, within the first eight months of stocking unprepped fish and corals. they all thought too they could skip it.
many of the entrants in the help threads did attempt to qt and fallow, but did it wrong somewhere along the way and disease still got through, even after they tried. not trying at all to prevent disease is literally welcoming it, especially in dry start tanks that have no natural biosuppression built into the rocks.
based on the # of days running plus your ammonia drop reported, even the non digital test kits now agree it's ready.
the risk to your fish now lies in the preps from the stickies in the disease forum, you're about to skip past those crucial steps. (fallow and quarantine)
Has anyone done coral/inverts only and no fish at first?
Fish seem to be the main cause of disruption in a display tank, given the current circumstances in the hobby with pests (ich, velvet, parasites, etc.). I have been in this hobby for 18 years, and the amount of pests that are showing up lately is much more (could also be the fact that we have...
www.reef2reef.com
read that thread if you want to keep your fish alive the longest vs replace them every few months
you add fish last, not first, to avoid having to use a separate tank to fallow prep every single item you'll add from a pet store coming up, and that's a lot of items. hardly anyone will adhere to what they're reading above, which is why on any given day the disease forum is chock full of loss help posts, within the first eight months of stocking unprepped fish and corals. they all thought too they could skip it.
many of the entrants in the help threads did attempt to qt and fallow, but did it wrong somewhere along the way and disease still got through, even after they tried. not trying at all to prevent disease is literally welcoming it, especially in dry start tanks that have no natural biosuppression built into the rocks.