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Hey I've just started playing towards the end of 5th so I'm not sure how GW goes about releasing new codexes after a new edition comes out. Do they come out with a bunch at once or something like one a month or how do they go about it? I'm trying estimate about how long it would be before they do Tyranids in particular.

They take a long time to come out. Tyranids fortunately are bottom rung right now which means they are well due for a Codex update, so you may not have to wait too much more than 6 mo but I don't believe the rumor doctors have put them as high up on the Codex update chain as Tau and Chaos.

Codex updates are a slow, churning process. Most of the old Codexes that are out right now have been out for years, some of them for five years old or more. I'm sure someone will release the 5th edition release schedule...

To give you some idea, some armies didn't even receive a Codex update in 5th. Orks, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Eldar, Tyranids, Tau, Sisters of Battle; all of them are still using 4th edition Codexes. Edit, or worse, they're not using an actual Codex.

Not using an actual codex?

I think he meant using an actual codex made for the game (I.e. 6th Ed)

Nids won't be updated anytime soon.

Average life span of a codex since 3rd edition is about 6 years (IIRC - I remember researching this a while ago). There was talk some time ago about GW wanting to reduce this to about 4 years, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

There are currently at least 6 codices that need an update more than Tyranids, IMHO (in no particular order: CSM, Daemons, Eldar, Tau, Black Templars, Dark Angels), plus I have a hard time believing that Space Marine would go more than a year or so without a new codex after an edition change. There are typically 2-3 codex releases per year, this year being an exception, so the earliest I could see Tyranids getting an update would be late 2014.

Gotcha so long story short, don't hold my breath for the Tyranid codex. So all the Tyranid creatures should be essentially unchanged untill then and it'll just be the main game rule changes that effect their army builds right?

That's right.

If recent precedents are anything to go by, though, you might get small updates via WD if you're lucky, like Orks and SM. But like you say, don't hold your breath.

Time between codex's is uncertain. Space Marines get one every edition, as have the Tyranids interestingly enough (despite being horribly underpowered as of 5th). Guys like the Tau and until recently Necrons however....you're gonna be waiting a while.

In terms of codex release schedule, GW usually tries to release 2 per year, which is drastically shorty of what it should be doing.

The next to be updated are probably Chaos and Dark Angels.