Hi Butterflygirl,
you are always welcome.
I am sorry about lose your catfish. I want to know what kind of catfish? Well The african cichlids are very tough fish and easy to take care but they are very aggressive. Okay there is too many diffrent kind of test kits, you need to give me more speicify test for ammonia. I believe 8 ppm is pretty high, you need to get zero mean is safe water. Okay you need to feed them 2 x a day with small amount of food. DOES NOT OVER FEED!. If you over feed them the water become poulation cause ammonia, nitrIte, nitAte, etc go high to kill your fish.
The best 2 ways are safe you can choisce.
One way is a few fish in your 10 gallon tank feed them small food, Do not add any fish. till for 6 weeks.
2 ways is you can buy a bottle of Cycle made by hagen, you can read the bottle says you can do that. the cycle control your fish to save and wont die and you can add more fish anytime you want.
HTH
Duncan
