Ready To Stock Advice Please

[gillpeo]

Hiya. My 200l tank has now completed its fishless cycle. I want a peaceful tank. I have read up about neons, danios,rasbora,rainbows,swordtails and pencil fish and have learnt about numbers that they are most happy in. My questin is ... as this is a new set up how many fish should I introduce to the tank and how long should I wait to introduce more.And any advice on which type of algae eaters would be most suitable would be appreciated. At this moment in time the tank has bogwwod and gravel. I will be getting lots of plants today and hopefully some fish either today or tomorrow. Many Thanks Gill
Tank has overhead and external filter running off 900lph pump heater and airstone with T5 lighting

 

[fluttermoth]

What PPM of ammonia have you cycled to, OP?

 

[gillpeo]

What PPM of ammonia have you cycled to, OP?

Hiya I cycled to 5ppm it has taken nearly 8 weeks to cycle tank. I have been adding 10 drops of amonia over the last week to keep the bacteria happy whilst the nitrite dropped to zero. When the nitrates started to spike and the amonia and nitrites were at zero I did a 75% water change and cleaned off the algae from the glass. There is still algae on the bog wood and I havent cleaned the gravel. I intend to buy plants today. I am just concerned about how many fish to put in the tank at first as I dont want to spoil 8 weeks of cycling with an amonia spike thats too much for the bacteria to handle and cruel to the fish. Any advice would be appreciated.
Gill

What PPM of ammonia have you cycled to, OP?

Hiya I cycled to 5ppm it has taken nearly 8 weeks to cycle tank. I have been adding 10 drops of amonia over the last week to keep the bacteria happy whilst the nitrite dropped to zero. When the nitrates started to spike and the amonia and nitrites were at zero I did a 75% water change and cleaned off the algae from the glass. There is still algae on the bog wood and I havent cleaned the gravel. I intend to buy plants today. I am just concerned about how many fish to put in the tank at first as I dont want to spoil 8 weeks of cycling with an amonia spike thats too much for the bacteria to handle and cruel to the fish. Any advice would be appreciated.
Gill

sorry thats 10 drops of amonia per day. The bacteria ate it within 6 hours

 

[fluttermoth]

In theory, with a full fishless cycle as you've done, you could fully stock in one go, but personally I'd err on the side of caution and add no more than ten or twelve of your small shoaling fish, or four or five of the larger ones, like the swordtails, to start with. Then increase your stock by no more than 50% every couple of weeks.

And if you want neons leave them for a few months, as they do seem to prefer mature tanks to new ones, even if they're fully cycled.

One or two bristlenoses or one of the small plec species would be fine in a 200l.

Let us know what you get! Stocking new tanks is so exciting

 

[gillpeo]

In theory, with a full fishless cycle as you've done, you could fully stock in one go, but personally I'd err on the side of caution and add no more than ten or twelve of your small shoaling fish, or four or five of the larger ones, like the swordtails, to start with. Then increase your stock by no more than 50% every couple of weeks.

And if you want neons leave them for a few months, as they do seem to prefer mature tanks to new ones, even if they're fully cycled.

One or two bristlenoses or one of the small plec species would be fine in a 200l.

Let us know what you get! Stocking new tanks is so exciting

Thanks so much for the advice. I have bought a load of plants today and put them in tank. I am going back tp the pet shop tomorrow to buy a plec so he can clean up the tank of algae. Lady at pet shop said to just have the plec for a week and to then start adding the shoaling fish at approx 6-8 at a time per week. The plec is about 4" long and is called dyson lol

 

[fluttermoth]

Are you certain what kind of plec it is?

You do need to be sure, as you don't want to end up with a common, or a gibbiceps, that will outgrow your tank and need rehoming later (and rehoming large plecs is not easy).

 

[The Taffy Apple]

+1 to the above.
I would choose some of your other stocking plan first as well.

Terry.

 

[OldMan47]

Hold off on the neons for at least a month. Most of the rest are hardy enough to stock on day 1 although an initial stocking at no more than 2/3 of the ultimate stock level would place you in a more conservative position. If all is well after the first week, as shown by your testing, go ahead with all the rest but your neons.

 

[gillpeo]

Thanks so much for all the advice. The pleco is a bristlenose called dyson. over the last couple of days we have added 6 platys and 6 mollies. I have still continued to test the water for amonia nitrate and nitrite all reading zero. All the fish seem to be happy. I follwed instructions for adding fish from another forum member who suggested taking water out of the tank into a bucket, floating fish in bag in bucket and eventually letting the fish swim out of bag into bucket then netting into tank....it worked really well.The pleco has been noshing away very happily and the bog wood looks really clean. I am feeding them with algae flakes and going to try cucumber and peas. going to leave it at least a week before thinking about adding any more fish. The tank looks really good with the plants. Me and the kids spent ages today just watching the fish swimming in and out of the bogwood caves at one point there was me my two girls our 2 cats and our 2 golden retrievers watching the tank sooooo much better than TV.
gill

 

[fluttermoth]

Everything sounds pretty good, gill

I am slightly worried about your zero nitrate reading though. It's quite unusual to have zero nitrate in a properly cycled tank. Please don't think I'm being patronising, but are you sure you're doing the test correctly? If you're using the API nitrate test, are you shaking the bottle enough? Sometimes the second bottle needs a good bash on a table to get the reagent back into suspension. What is the nitrate in your tap water?

 

[Aqua Tom]

As Fluttermouth has aid, the API Nitrate test is notoriously difficult to get right. Smack the bottles together or play the drums with them on a counter for a couple of mins to mix the reagent up again.

ps, Dyson - great name for a fishy vacume cleaner.


Tom

 

[gillpeo]

Just tested water again. amonia zero, nitrite zero and after 3 tests and bashing the nitrate bottle the last result was between 10 and 20 ppm the API colour chart on nitrate theres not much difference between the 10 and 20 ppm so I am guessing that a partial water change is needed.
Gill

 

[fluttermoth]

No, 20ppm of nitrate is perfectly acceptable. Your aim should be to not let the nitrate drift up more than 20ppm above what's in your tap water.