With shoaling fish, it is always better to acquire the entire group at the same time. While with white clouds the hierarchy issue is not as significant as it would be with some species, it is still better to introduce the entire group together.
I probably won't reply for a while. Only once it seems like it's nearly doneByron said:If the plants are growing, then six or seven white clouds will not have any problems.
I have a 20g quarantine tank for new fish acquisitions which runs permanently with a few plants (but no fish obviously). I may come back from the store with 20-30 fish, and they go in this tank. The established system with live plants and bacteria easily handle things.
So my levels are currently:Byron said:
No. There is no need now that you are where you are, with plants.
Oh yes I wasn't going to add fish! Its definitely toxic water at the moment haha I was just wondering if there was anything at all that I should do other than keep being patientAkasha72 said:yes leave it. If you add fish to that they'll be dead very quickly
Basically I started it with advice from my Los before finding this place here. I then hated the look of an empty tank so I've put all my plants in. The ammonia spiked and then dropped whilst nitrite just keeps going up, as does nitrate.Ch4rlie said:There appears to be some conflicting advice being given on this thread about cycling.
Seems that Byron is suggesting a 'silent cycle' which is basically having the tank pretty densely planted with a mixture of fast growing and slow growing plants. The plants do consume ammonia, which in turn does not create nitrite and this allow one to have fish in a tank such as this very quickly provided testing is carried out to ensure its fine with the fish bioload of ammonia.
Akasha initially did seem to suggest a kind of 'fish in cycle' at first, this is cycling a tank using the fish as a source of ammonia, this method by far is the riskiest as any issues that arises the fish will suffer. A lot of water changes and testing is required, also takes longer to complete a successful cycle this way.
And now it seems that you have settled into a sort of fishless cycle but am a little confused to be honest at this point but thinking that since you added some bacteria booster you are waiting on the tank to settle then perhaps dosing with ammonia then testing, this is not quite clear what the plan is exactly?
I would suggest staying with the fishless cycle and follow the artlcle on 'cycling your new fresh water tank' but test regularly to see where things stand.
And having a source of ammonia to test 24 hours after dosages to be sure that this is ready for fish to be added might be an idea.
Tetra Safe Start is a good bacteria starter but this depends on a number of factors, namely on how it was transported and stored by the LFS.
These three methods are the most common ways to cycle a tank, which method depends on your preferences and there are slight variations with each process for each type of cycling.
As long as you know what each method incurs and what you have an idea of what is to happen out, research and asking advice, just as you are doing now, is the best way