Just Tested Water Need Help!

[Luvbugz]

Okay. Petsmart shoulda told you to cycle your tank first before adding fish. Your tank doesn't have enough of the beneficial bacteria for the fishies right now hence the ammonia spike. You need to do a major water change and get Prime or Amquel. It will help detox the ammonia for the fish, but keep it useable by the bacteria you are trying to get established. Your next worry is gonna be a nitrite spike. Same as before. Water changes, add Amquel or Prime. (This is where salt can be used. It helps detox nitrite for fishes.) Read up on the nitrogen cycle. It will become your best friend/worst enemy. You are gonna wanna test your water daily, if not twice daily to see where it is in the cycle. You are probably gonna be doing alotta water changes for a little while just to keep things under control so the fishies don't die or get sick.
P.S. Gouramis are air breathers. They will come to the top to breathe air. Hence why Petsmart probably said they would do okay in an uncycled tank. "The ammonia won't be as stressful on them." It still is stressful on them. It burns their little eyes and body

 

[Cylinder]

In the spirit of full disclosure, keeping a reptile happy and healthy is as much work (if not more) on average as fish.

 

[magakitty]

Hang in there - I was ready to throw my 20 out the window at one point - every other tank we have and have had (including the 1 gal - now dry on a shelf) cycled fine - within 1-2 weeks - the 20 took over 7 weeks. It went into phosphate block syndrome and the "trites wouldn't budge for 3 weeks. I seeded it with stuff from our other tanks and tanks from the LFS and everything. Just when I thought I would have to drain it and get a nice reptile, it finished. IT WILL HAPPEN - I PROMISE!!!!!

 

[spirals]

Yeah, I really wish I could go to these other petsmarts and bonk the employee's on the head. They give the rest of us a bad name. Also, not sure if you should switch to reptiles if you get this frustrated with fish I mean, there you enter the whole world of heat lamps and basking bulbs and UVB and crickets and substrate and having an animal who can live anywhere from 15-75 years!
Hang in there, it will all be worth it at the end
Also you should definitely by a gravel vac, they are only about 10-15 bucks for the smaller ones and soooo worth it. It's not just useful for cycling and dealing with unruly ammonia spikes, it really makes the tank cleaner in the end and gets all the crap from out of the gravel so you aren't just pulling out the cleaner water to replace it.
Never be afraid to ask pet store employee's questions or say outright "I'm new, what do I need to know about fish keeping" (and if you come to VA and ask me, expect to spend like...5 hours with me lol jk), a lot of them assume that if you sound like you know what you're doing (**** that self confidence!) that you do, and so won't tell you about cycling, ammonia spikes, feeding, etc. I've actually had customers all out yell at me when I started explaining how to cycle a tank and go "I know how to f'n cycle a tank, I've kept fish since before you were born" or "I've kept my silver dollars with mollys for over 10 years without a problem, don't try to tell me that the silver dollar is semi-aggressive". After a few of those customers some less dedicated workers at any store will begin to stop assuming the person is new at fish keeping.

-kristi