Uncycled 10 gallon tank?

Cycle is garbage. Bacteria need something to sustain them, buying a packed bottle of bacteria is nothing more than buying a bottle of water full of dead bacteria. The bacteria is naturally occurring and grows just as fast on it's own as it does with any jump start products.

While you will want to cut back on food, a week is too long. During the cycling process the fish will be stressed. Decreasing food to once a week will stress them further and weaken their systems even more. Feeding every 2 or 3 days is recommended, but a week would be pushing, considering cycling a tank is going to take up around 6 weeks.

And yes, you must do water changes. If you fail to do water changes, the ammonia levels will rapidly rise to over 5ppm. That is a lot of ammonia. The bacteria that break down ammonia and nitrites adhere to surfaces in the tank and aren't present in any significant quantity in the water it's self. You may remove some during a water change, but not enough to significantly impact the cycling process.

Get ammonia and nitrite test kits. Do NOT get anything that removes ammonia. Using this stuff WILL hamper the cycling process as it takes away what the bacteria need to survive and multiply.

It takes longer to cycle with fish than it does with lifeless cycling, but if you do not do 25% water changes, your fish will suffer.

Do the water changes as needed.

The bacteria dont live free in the water, they live on the filter media and the gravel. Vacuming the gravel wont remove them, they are sticky wee things.

Changing too much water may slow down the cycle, but only because you are removing some of the food that the cycle bacteria feed on, but the fish will be OK. But not changing enough will let the ammonia build up, great for the cycle bacteria, BAD for your fish.

Ian

"cycle" products are crap. A bunch of dead bacteria in a bottle... I heard Tetra Safestart actually works though. Besides that, don't buy any cycling crap in a bottle. What kind of fish are they? Many fish make it through the cycle just fine TBH. Doing the regular 25% water changes once a week is still fine. Bacteria builds up mostly in your filter media and substrate, NOT in the water. Vacuuming the gravel is still good, just don't go crazy. Just skim the surface for poop.

As mentioned, a filter pad from somebody's established tank is great.

Fish can go weeks without food. It sounds cruel, but don't feed them for about a week. Buy a bottle of Cycle at the local pet store (Comes in a white box, 8 or 16 oz. sizes) and pour about 1/4-1/2 of the bottle in and then about 1 cap full per day for a few weeks afterwords. The Cycle will jump-start the nitrifying bacteria (all it is is bacteria) and help the tank cycle faster.

Also, DON'T change the water. Doing so will take out beneficial bacteria, and make the process take longer.

that's pretty much it unless you know someone who has a filtered tank, in which case you can get some already cycled gravel and/or a peice of the persons filter to add to 'seed' the tank and speed the process up a lot.