@Calvin - I didn't see if you answered this, but what color is your water? Most common will be either green or a dark tea color. Have you added any live plants? Logs? Rocks?
I think you mentioned that you ran one of the filters on the old pond... How long did it run before you moved it to the new pond? Did you take any of the filter media from the old pond and put it in the new filters? If you did any of this, you have already transferred more bacteria to your pond than you will receive in any bottles you buy from a store. At that point there's no need to add anything else to the pond. Oh, and as mentioned, that brown film that the store scraped from their pond liner is not bacteria... its nothing more than common algae. There *may* be a very minute amount of bacteria growing with the algae, but essentially what the store did was just give you a bag of dirt, and it will do you just as much good as if you had thrown in a handful of dirt from your yard.
Now for a little knowledge in what is happening... Every new body of water has to establish a cycle, and this cycle usually won't hurt the fish unless something disrupts it. First you start with ammonia from the fish waste, and you will see that start to appear on your daily tests. This causes bacteria to grow which converts the ammonia to nitrites. The nitrites then grow new bacteria which converts nitrites into nitrates. All of these bacteria are what you want in your pond, but even if you never add any, they will still show up. They exist on leaves and birds and everything else that comes in contact with your pond, so don't worry so much about adding every bottle of bacteria you can find, it really won't help. Once you have all the different types of bacteria active, the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all balance each other out... they are still there, but they all work together to clean your water.
Now, you asked before about why you would only do a 10% water change, and not change out a lot more if your ammonia is really high. Well first off, what do you consider "high"? I wouldn't even think about it unless your levels get up above 2.0 or 3.0. If you're still at 0.25, its pretty normal. However let's imagine you decided to do a 50% water change because you thought your ammonia was too high. When you replace 50% of the water, you have taken away half of the food source (the ammonia) from the new bacteria you are trying to grow, so suddenly a lot of that bacteria dies. And dead bacteria means higher ammonia, so by doing too large a water change, you have made your problem even worse! The best course of action is to keep monitoring your levels, but do not change anything until the pond has fully cycled.
That also means quit adding new fish! You say all these people are suddenly offering to give you fish... if they have the fish now, there is now reason why they can't wait a week or two before giving them to you. Your pond is in a delicate stage right now, and every time you add more fish increases the chances that you are going to kill ALL of them. You've already pushed your luck, and if you don't screw up any more you might pull through. Yes, adding just one more fish right now could make the difference, and you may wake up tomorrow with all of your fish dead.
I originally asked about the water color, because that tells you a lot too. The dark tea color usually comes from logs or dead plants, and won't hurt the fish. If you water is green (and it will be soon enough), don't make the mistake of trying to clean up up by dumping even more chemicals in the water. In the early stages of the water cycle, algae is going to suddenly grow like crazy (algae bloom). Your water is going to be bright green, and you won't be able to see your fish. This stage is going to last for a long time, probably a month or two. This is also part of the natural cycle! The algae is feeding on the sudden surplus of nitrates in the water that the bacteria are creating, and when you see the bright green it means that your pond is doing good and may be past the danger zone to your fish. You should see this within the first couple weeks of your pond running. Have patience, the algae will eventually find a balance, and suddenly one day your water will be crystal clear. This also happens to most people every Spring because the bacteria and algae start growing as the water warms up. Just have patience, because once your pond clears up from the algae bloom, it means the water has reached a good balance and your fish are safe. NOW is the time when it is safe to start adding a few more fish. I would never add more than 3-4 fish per week, even after your pond is balanced. Give the bacteria time to adjust to the additional fish. And finally, if your water is any other color than green or tea, you probably have contaminants... Dirt, dirty sand or rocks, maybe something used to pot some plants. There's not much you can do about this except give it a couple weeks for the dirt to settle.
