How Long Between Adding Fish

[tttnjfttt]

On Friday, I added four new fish, a tiger barb (to add to the existing school), a red tailed shark, a clown loach, and a gourami. How long should I wait between adding new fish. Today i checked ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite were both zero, and nitrate was about 15.

 

[Ethos]

I'm not very good at stats, but I think you can add more fish as long as your first fish are comfertable and moved-in.
Don't add more fish untill your first set it OK.
Then its up to you.

 

[seanc]

Your water quality is great so that will pose no problems; as long as you other fish seem OK and there are no signs of disease such as ICH (which unfortunately can take three weeks to show up) then you can add fish now. Might be a good idea to use a quarantine tank if you can though.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi tttnjfttt

It depends on several factors and you haven't included enough information in your question to get a reliable answer.

Is your tank already cycled so that you only have to wait for the beneficial bacteria to reproduce in sufficient numbers to process the wastes of the fish you just put in, or are you doing a cycle with fish and starting from scratch?

Even if it's an established tank, the answer would have to depend on the size of the fish you just added because large fish produce more waste products than small ones. How much you fed them over the weekend could make a difference too. In other words, how much you increased the bio-load in proportion to what your beneficial bacteria are used to handling is the important issue. If your recent addition doubled it, you will have to wait longer than if you only increased it by 10%.

See where I'm going with this?

 

[tttnjfttt]

Ok, the tank is an established 40 gal. However, it was very under stocked because of disease outbreaks over the summer, getting a sick batch of african cichlids (have since given up on them), and living away from my tank for three months (the tank is now back with me).

Before Friday, I had 4 tiger barbs that had survived my dad's care. They had lived in the tank since I got it in July.

Friday, I added one more tiger barb, a clown loach, a red tailed shark, and an opaline gourami. I have been feeding them fairly heavily, more just because i'm trying to figure out how much to be feeding them of some of the new foods I bought (shrimp pellets and algae wafers for the shark and loach).

As for behavior, i haven't seen any illness. However, last night was the first time i saw the gourami eat.

And just restating - ammonia and nitrite are zero, and nitrate is 15.

 

[rdd1952]

I would wait till the mini cycle finishes. You may not have any readings yet but you will have as you have doubled the stock (maybe a little more or less than doubled depending on the waste production of each). As Inchworm mentioned, the amount of any mini cycle will depend on how much you add. You added four fish which doubled the stock. If there had been 20 fish in the tank and you added 4 (a 20% increase), you probably wouldn't have ever seen any ammonia at all as the bacteria would have caught up very quickly.