Rate Of Adding Fish

[aaronjt]

Hi All,

Currently have a rather quiet 180l planted tank, which I have had for 5 weeks, with the following fish in it:

2 Cardinal Tetra's
3 Cory Catfish
2 Mollys (and 2 tiny baby mollies)

All my water readings (according to the api master kit) are:
Temperature : 26c
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0
Nitrate : Between 0 and 5
Ph : 7.2

Unfortunatly, thanks to my LFS, did a fish in cycle . At what rate do you guys think could I add some more fish as I would like to boost my cardinals up to a bigger shoal?

Many thanks

Aaron

 

[Floyds mum]

Well looking at other's info on here if you get those readings for 8 consecutive days then that cycle is somplete.
After that id have to say about half a dozen or so fish at once

 

[ZoddyZod]

Well looking at other's info on here if you get those readings for 8 consecutive days then that cycle is somplete.
After that id have to say about half a dozen or so fish at once

If the OP adds 6 at once it will almost double the current stock, which wont give the filter bacs enough time to catch up.

OP, have you been testing the water for the whole of the five weeks? Have you ever seen traces of Ammonia or nitrite? What are you using to test the water?

 

[aaronjt]

Well looking at other's info on here if you get those readings for 8 consecutive days then that cycle is somplete.
After that id have to say about half a dozen or so fish at once

If the OP adds 6 at once it will almost double the current stock, which wont give the filter bacs enough time to catch up.

OP, have you been testing the water for the whole of the five weeks? Have you ever seen traces of Ammonia or nitrite? What are you using to test the water?

Hi there Zoddy,

Yeah I've been testing the water throughout the time and had the ammonia spike and nitrite spike and they have been 0 for the past week. I lost some of the tetras to new tank syndrome . Like I said I've been using an API Master Test kit to test the water as it seems pretty good

Hmmm, so 6 may be too many to add? I was thinking 4 or 5 to get the shoal up to a social number?

Aaron

 

[ZoddyZod]

Yeah I've been testing the water throughout the time and had the ammonia spike and nitrite spike and they have been 0 for the past week. I lost some of the tetras to new tank syndrome . Like I said I've been using an API Master Test kit to test the water as it seems pretty good

Hmmm, so 6 may be too many to add? I was thinking 4 or 5 to get the shoal up to a social number?

Aaron

ok, I just wanted to make sure that the tank is 'really' cycled. I know from my fish-in experience that you can get odd readings that make you think it's done, when it isn't. If you've seen the spikes, however, then it all sounds fine.

I'm only going on what I've read, but I think you should add maybe 3 cardinals. This is less than a 50% increase in stock and so the filter should be able to cope after 24hrs. You might see a little spike of ammonia during that time, but after 24hrs the bacteria should have multiplied and caught up. Just keep an eye on the readings. This happened to me when I added my first fish after the fish-in cycle.

Leave the tank for another week, and then if fine again, repeat the process. I believe that if you keep to 50% or less increase in stock each time, then you should be fine.

 

[aaronjt]

Great stuff, thanks very much for the advice