Quarantine tank still has nitrites - is it still safer than my display tank for new fish?

[Tory]

I've been cycling my 10 gallon as a temporary quarantine tank. Fish are arriving today. The quarantine tank still has nitrites - it was about 5ppm, then I did a 50% water change and it went down to about 3ppm. Ammonia is 0ppm. What's my best bet for the fish coming today? Will they be okay with the nitrites? Or should I just put them in my established display tank?

[Daniel]

5 minutes ago, Tory said:

I've been cycling my 10 gallon as a temporary quarantine tank. Fish are arriving today. The quarantine tank still has nitrites - it was about 5ppm, then I did a 50% water change and it went down to about 3ppm. Ammonia is 0ppm. What's my best bet for the fish coming today? Will they be okay with the nitrites? Or should I just put them in my established display tank?

Does your established display tank have fish in it? It sounds like your new quarantine tank may not have cycled yet.

[Tory]

6 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Does your established display tank have fish in it? It sounds like your new quarantine tank may not have cycled yet.

Yes my display tank has fish in it already. And yeah that's what I'm worried about, that it's not fully cycled

[Daniel]

If it were me, and this might be only me because I am okay with some amount of risk, if I trusted the source of the new fish I would rather put the new fish in the best most cycled tank I had, that is, my established tank.

To me this would be better than putting new not yet sick fish into an uncycled aquarium where they would soon become actually sick fish.

[Tory]

Just now, Daniel said:

If it were me, and this might be only me because I am okay with some amount of risk, if I trusted the source of the new fish I would rather put the new fish in the best most cycled tank I had, that is, my established tank.

To me this would be better than putting new not yet sick fish into an uncycled aquarium where they would soon become actually sick fish.

Thank you, Daniel! This is kinda what I was thinking as well, but I know how strict the Aquarium Co-op family is about quarantine so I wasn't sure which was riskier lol. But yeah I'd guess that the potential for a complete tank crash is riskier than putting healthy looking new fish (from AquaHuna) with my other fish. Was hoping the tank would be cycled in time but fish are coming a bit earlier than expected. Hopefully it'll be done cycling soon so if any issues do arise, I can separate them.

[H.K.Luterman]

You could always put filter media from the main tank into the quarantine for an instant cycle. A lot of people keep spare sponges around inside their tanks for when they need to put bacteria in a new one. That's what I do for my quarantine bin; I set it up when I need it, rather than having to worry about keeping it cycled.

[Tory]

1 minute ago, H.K.Luterman said:

You could always put filter media from the main tank into the quarantine for an instant cycle. A lot of people keep spare sponges around inside their tanks for when they need to put bacteria in a new one. That's what I do for my quarantine bin; I set it up when I need it, rather than having to worry about keeping it cycled.

I put in some plants and decorations when I started cycling it from my main tank but still have nitrites 😕