Filtration vs stocking

[AbbeysDad]

I dunno - it seems like a lot of fish to get at once with tanks that are not well established. You might be better off with two or more separate shipments.
Perhaps if you get the 55 well planted and the pleco at home in there for a couple of weeks, the rest would come off okay...but bear in mind that the 55 would at least temporarily also be a pseudo quarantine tank.

Okay to use the SafeStart although I've only used Seachem Stability in the past. You might also want to have some Prime on hand. Prime can save the day if you see fish in distress (such as flashing or gulping air at the surface) which can happen if the BB isn't able to keep up with the ammonia produced.
Particularly in a newer tank, you could add enough new fish to temporarily overload the existing BB colony which may take 24-48 hours to catch up.

I've been very lucky with a great local pet store that has the best fish so quarantining fish has hardly been necessary. Many of the fish he sells are tank raised from local breeders. Matter of fact, I recently 'sold' him 3 dozen fish (I became an 'accidental breeder'). However, as his fish business has increased, some fish are now are being imported from a supplier and those I feel need quarantining so my other fish are protected. I have another 2 dozen fish that I'll take to him in a month or two, meanwhile I have a dozen Neon Tetras in a 10g quarantine tank in the basement.

I tend to like to see the fish I buy and I've never ordered fish online. Where are you planning to order from?

 

[Byron]

With floating plants that are growing, you should have no problems adding fish. I have a 20g that I use to QT new fish acquisitions; it is planted with culls of chain sword, and the surface is covered with floating water lettuce. I have come home with 40-50 fish and they have gone in there for 4-6 weeks, with no issues at all. Floating plants are "ammonia sinks." I had a conversation with Tom Barr once, trying to ascertain just how much ammonia the plants could deal with when adding fish to any tank, and Tom said it would really be impossible to put too many fish in, as far as ammonia went.

 

[AbbeysDad]

I'm betting it was/is an established 20g, not a new setup. Either that or all this stuff we here about cycling a tank is just nonsense.

Okay, I'm done.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

I know the 55 would be a temporary quarantine and my pleco could be at risk.

Yes it would be a new set up with plants. Most likely the plants would be growing for about a month without any fish (except maybe the pleco after a couple of weeks, maybe...lol).

However, the ten gallons don't have live plants (well one has 2 anubias but that's it). It held the gourami for 5 weeks and now 2 mystery snails. So not a completely new set up. The one the pleco is in needs to get cleaned out after I do a worming treatment to try and get rid of whatever these worm things are on the glass.

I DO have a access to a tote that can hold ten gallons. So if I needed to maybe put one group in it? Though I would rather not if 2 groups can go in the 55 with no problems.

And if anything, I could always order some Dr. Tim's one and only. Though from Dr's foster and smith it doesn't arrive cold even though they put the ice pack in. Takes to long in shipping. But I think it may be faster from his website, not sure. I actually do have a bottle of it in the fridge...but the date is expired so I'm assuming it isn't good anymore.

Also, I plan to get the stock on liveaquaria.com. reviews seem to be good with them and they also have that 14 day guarantee, which is a plus.

 

[Byron]

I'm betting it was/is an established 20g, not a new setup. Either that or all this stuff we here about cycling a tank is just nonsense.

Okay, I'm done.

Yes it is permanently running, though it can sit for months without fish. The longest it sat fishless was three years, during the period when I had the endless (as they seemed) surgeries/biopsies for the cancer. But the main point is the plants.

Cycling isn't nonsense, but with live plants that are so fast at grabbing ammonia, and grab so much, it is almost impossible to have problems. Provided the plants are growing, and some at least are fast growers--and here the floaters are best. Even something as small as duckweed--I deliberately maintain this in two tanks, one being my 10g which has a group of pygmy cories that spawn regularly and there are some 20-30 cories of varying sizes from specs on the sand to the adults. I thin out the duckweed at each water change to about 1/3 the surface; by the following week, it is almost completely covering the surface. We all know how this plant grows "like a weed," but most surface plants can do this; the Water Sprite and Water Lettuce are not far behind the duckweed. Floaters have the aerial advantage, as they can assimilate CO2 from the air which is some four times faster than from the water, and they are closest to the light. So they naturally grow the most rapid. And ammonia/ammonium being the macro nutrient nitrogen, they use a lot of it. I'll reference some amazing levels from a study in a moment.

Plants also use ammonia to bind with stored carbohydrates to form ordinary amino acids. Plants use ammonium, not nitrate, as the nitrogen needed to synthesize or produce their proteins. This is why biological filtration is not encouraged in tanks with plants; when nitrifying bacteria convert ammonium to nitrite to nitrate, plants are forced at great energy to convert nitrates back into ammonium. This explains why plants use so much ammonia/ammonium, and fortunately they can take this up faster than the bacteria. Which explains why fast-growing plants are so useful in fish tanks, even brand new ones.

To that study. Ammonia levels in stagnant water in two ponds, one plant-free, the other with a surface mat of duckweed, rose during the first 20 hours in both ponds. When the water was circulated, the ammonia declined by 90% within 48 hours in the duckweed pond; in contrast, ammonia in the duckweed-free pond remained high for 48 hours until the nitrifying bacteria became established, after which there was a gradual decrease due to the bacterial activity. Plants are better and faster.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

So, would what I suggest work? Basically putting 30 fish in the 55 at once(the pleco would already be in it). And then one of the ten gallons would have 15 with a couple of mystery snails already in, and the other would have ten to twelve cories. The tank with mystery snails only has a couple of anubias, but I may be able to play around and put my fluval stingray light on it and see if I could get some wisteria growing in it. The other one won't have a strong enough light, though I suppose I could try and see. Lol. Better now then when I have more stuff in them I suppose. And I would still probably add a full bottle of tetra safe start to the tens (the ones at Walmart are for 20 gallons only) and then grab a bigger bottle from Petsmart that I think does 60 gallons. Just as a precaution really. I would most definitely test the water daily if not twice a day just in case and can do water changes if needed.

 

[Byron]

So, would what I suggest work? Basically putting 30 fish in the 55 at once(the pleco would already be in it). And then one of the ten gallons would have 15 with a couple of mystery snails already in, and the other would have ten to twelve cories. The tank with mystery snails only has a couple of anubias, but I may be able to play around and put my fluval stingray light on it and see if I could get some wisteria growing in it. The other one won't have a strong enough light, though I suppose I could try and see. Lol. Better now then when I have more stuff in them I suppose. And I would still probably add a full bottle of tetra safe start to the tens (the ones at Walmart are for 20 gallons only) and then grab a bigger bottle from Petsmart that I think does 60 gallons. Just as a precaution really. I would most definitely test the water daily if not twice a day just in case and can do water changes if needed.

If you have live plants that are fast growing and they are obviously "growing," you will have no problems with the 55g. Anubias is a slow grower, and in a smaller tank, so using the Safe Start should solve that.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

Thanks so much!

 

[AbbeysDad]

That Byron is a real wild man
I'd be reluctant to put 30, 40, 50 fish in a new tank right away with only a floating plant safety net.
I prolly wouldn't put more than a dozen right away in a new tank even with a bio-seed from a healthy, established tank. But that's just me.
I hope it all works out for you.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

That Byron is a real wild man
I'd be reluctant to put 30, 40, 50 fish in a new tank right away with only a floating plant safety net.
I prolly wouldn't put more than a dozen right away in a new tank even with a bio-seed from a healthy, established tank. But that's just me.
I hope it all works out for you.

Well, it sort of won't be completely brand new. It will run for a good while before I get fish. My pleco and a bunch of mts that I will get will help seed it some. And more than likely I will still get a bottle of tetra safe start for that tank as well just in case! Lol.

 

[Byron]

That Byron is a real wild man
I'd be reluctant to put 30, 40, 50 fish in a new tank right away with only a floating plant safety net.
I prolly wouldn't put more than a dozen right away in a new tank even with a bio-seed from a healthy, established tank. But that's just me.
I hope it all works out for you.

Remember, they were very, very small fish, as one acquires in stores. And there is no doubt that I have a decent bacteria level in the sand, and the sponge filters help.

Here are some numbers to illustrate how rapidly plants can detoxify ammonia. As NH3 (ammonia) enters the plant cell by simple diffusion across the cell membrane, it may combined with a hydrogen ion (H+) and convert to non-toxic ammonium (NH4+). These can be stored in cell vacuoles. In one test, the cell vacuoles of Nitella clavata were found to contain over 2,400 mg/l of NH4+. That's 2400 ppm of ammonium converted from initial ammonia.

Byron.