Stocking After Fishless Cycle

[fourthtimelucky]

Hi everyone,

Have been reading the forums for a while whilst setting up my first tropical tank and found lots of helpful advice so here goes for my first post.

I think after five weeks my fishless cycle is almost done. Gave up trying to find pure ammonia, so have been using fishfood in old tights, two pinches a day. Bought a test kit to try and compensate for this rather un-scientific side of things.

Peaks etc all seemed to go according to plan and my tests are now coming out as: Ammonia either 0 or 0.1 (hard to tell with the colour), Nitrite 0.1, Nitrate 12.5

I used Tetra NitrateMinus a week ago to get the nitrates down a bit as our tapwater has high nitrates and I read some sites that suggested using food rather than ammonia would produce more nitrate. Seemed to work just fine. Haven't done a water change yet but once the fishies are in there will be doing at least 25% weekly. I’m going to chuck in some moss balls as well so hopefully they will do their bit.

My plans are:

6-8 Neons (apparently the ones in LFS are already acclimated to higher ph of local tapwater and do okay in it)
4 or 5 male guppies (depending on how many Neons I get)

And one or two of the following:

3 cherry shrimp
1 nerite snail
2 or 3 hatchet fish (although I want to do a bit more research on these first)
Possibly a small crab – he told me they wouldn’t eat neons etc but I’m not so sure…he also told me it wouldn’t get any bigger than it was (about 2cm shell) but I’m fairly sure that can’t be right!

Tank is 31 litres hex with a 12v filter that came with it plus a 12v air pump I put in to try and compensate for the smaller surface area. Heater keeps it at 24 degrees constant.

SO I went to the LFS... and the guy said no way could I put more than two or three little fish in to start with (he suggested white clouds). BUT - since they don't have a big bioload, won't all my lovely bacteria that I've been growing for five weeks starve & uncycle my tank? I'm not going to be feeding three minnows two big pinches of food a day!

I thought the idea was that once your fishless cycle had completed you could stock much more quickly than if you were starting from scratch.

I’ve done quite a lot of research… want to be a fishkeeper not a fishkiller!… but am a bit confused by his advice. Can anyone clear this up for me… and pass comment on my stocking plans, please?

Thanks!

 

[martyn21uk]

Okay, firstly I'm not sure that your tank is fully cycled. You should be getting your ammonia and nitrite to 0 when you test so you're not quite yet. It may seem like only a little bit, but it only tkes a small amount of ammonia or nitrite to stress your fish. And stressed fish = diseases = dead fish = fish killer not keeper!!! So just hang on a bit longer. As for stocking yes with fishless cycling you can go pretty much to your full load straight away but it looks to me that in your plans you will be way overstocking your tank. 31 litres is only about 10 us gallons off the top of my head so working to 1" fish per gallon you will be there and beyond on your neons alone.

Maybe time to re-think your stocking?

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Okay... my original stocking plan was more like this:

6 male guppies OR 8 neons
1 nerite snail OR 3 shrimp

But the man said... since i had an air pump and was prepared to do loads of water changes etc... I could definitely go for loads more fish!!! Maybe he had an ulterior motive, hmmm? (he also tried to get me to put a cory in there too but I know they need buddies, right?)

I am definitely not planning to put anything in the tank until my levels are right down to 0 -- I've waited this long so I may as well do the darned thing properly!

So I'll go back to my original sparser stocking plan... and I think I'll also go to a different fish shop to get 'em. Thanks!!!

 

[martyn21uk]

Just remember fish shops are there to sell fish, not to tell you to buy less fish!! There are a lot of exceptions but from my experience most will happily encourage overstocking without even realising it. It doesn't mean you need to find a new lfs necessarily just be careful. You are however doing the right thing in listening to what your lfs has to say then coming home and checking it out.

Yes cory's like to be in groups of 6+ to feel safe and live a happy life so probably best to give them a miss.

 

[mark.w.jones]

That tank is too small for neons I feel and they are dead flakey in new tanks. They need more swimming space.

I'd suggest going for 4 male guppies still if you like them. Then maybe 4 pygmaeus cories which only reach 1" each to begin with.

That's about full stock for your tank, you don't have a lot of space unfortunately which really limits your stocking.

I also don't think you've raised your ammonia levels high enough on a regular basis to have built up a high enough level of bacteria in your filter. Did you look in Homebase for your ammonia? They've always got it in my local store and I think there are at least 2 stores in Norwich.

 

[TubbyLaLa]

Hello from another Norwich begginer tropical fish tank keeper!!!! Our tank cycled well and quickly thanks to a mature filter I inherited with it. We initially wanted guppies or tetras to start with I am new to all this so opted for tetras as I love the silver tip and had done my research on them. We have a 42L tank. So we got 5 silver tip tetra, have read they could be sub-agressive (and boy they are!) and as tank was well planted they have set up their own little territories. They are great to watch but would not be suitable for our original plan of having guppies as I am sure they would fin nip and make other fishies life hell!!! Plus looking at stocking levels and growth I think best to not make anymore additions. Guy at LFS suggested adding 5 guppies after the tetra had been in for 3 days not going to be taking that advise! The tetra posse would have them for breakfast! They are super little fish and we love our hooligans and they are settling in well and are great to watch. But having cruised the norwich fish stores think hard about the advise they give and ask in here before making purchases I have had some varying advice from LFS some of which was definately not in the fishies best interest!! ("If they die we will replace them so just see how they go"!!!! and "If the guppies breed just get a big fish to eat the fry"!!!!!! made my eyebrows shoot up!) Think we will be sticking to our current stocking Good luck with your tank!!!

 

[Nosnibor]

I have had some varying advice from LFS some of which was definately not in the fishies best interest!! ("If they die we will replace them so just see how they go"!!!! and "If the guppies breed just get a big fish to eat the fry"!!!!!! made my eyebrows shoot up!) Think we will be sticking to our current stocking Good luck with your tank!!!

Yeah I've just had one call 'starter' fish 'trash fish' because 'that's where they usually end up', and they call themselves fish lovers - I have another word but will keep that one to myself

Martin

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Thanks everyone... I think I am going to go for the guppies on their own... I love the idea of neons but I think they have to wait until I can afford a bigger tank. I found another shop where staff seemed more knowledgeable so going to go there with my test results from whole cycle, water sample etc and see whether they reckon I'm ready to go yet...If not I guess I will be going to homebase for the ammonia. Fingers crossed...!

 

[rdd1952]

When you finish with a true fishless cycle, you can safely add a full fish load all at once without any problems. There will be plent of bacteria to handle it. While you were doing you fishless cycle, how high did the ammonia get and how fast did itgo back to zero? If the tank can process 4 to 5 ppm of ammonia back to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite in 10 to 12 hours, you are cycled. Since you still have ammonia and nitrite and a very low level of nitrate, I'm not so sure you are cycled yet. At the end of a good fishless cycle, nitrates should be well over 100 ppm (off the chart and darker than the darkest color). If you can get the ammonia, I would do that. The fish flakes will work but they can't get the ammonia level high enough to really build a big bacteria colony.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

My nitrates were well off the chart (my test kit does two strengths & it was maxing out on both) until I added the NitrateMinus which then brought it back down to the same as my tapwater. I only put that in because I'm getting algae... badly! But tank spiked at either 5 or 6 (hard to tell exactly with the colour strips). I'm going to get some pure ammonia from homebase when I get a chance to check how quickly it goes from 5 to 0. I want to make sure it has cycled properly.

 

[TubbyLaLa]

The water here is high in nitrates (local pet store were quite happy to talk about just having an 80mg/l spike regularly!!!) and they tap water tests 30-40mg/l so great you are compensating for that. There is a great fish store in Crostwick if you can find it much better than pets at home or giant petstore IMHO. Might be worth having a look there.

 

[Nosnibor]

My nitrates were well off the chart (my test kit does two strengths & it was maxing out on both) until I added the NitrateMinus which then brought it back down to the same as my tapwater. I only put that in because I'm getting algae... badly! But tank spiked at either 5 or 6 (hard to tell exactly with the colour strips). I'm going to get some pure ammonia from homebase when I get a chance to check how quickly it goes from 5 to 0. I want to make sure it has cycled properly.

I'm going through the fishless cycle at the moment and after adding enough ammonia to take the level to 5ppm it's taken a week for it to drop to under 1ppm. Both the Nitrite and the Nitrate are off the chart which is natural if you think about it. I believe it will take about the same time for the Nitrite to drop to 0ppm, but when it does the ammonia and Nitrite should both be at 0ppm (and that should have taken less than 12 hours) then the Nitrate will be off the chart. I will then be able to take the Nitrate down when I do a 75% - 90% water change. Obviously use dechlorinated water at all times.

Good luck fellow fishkeeper.

Martin

 

[rdd1952]

I only put that in because I'm getting algae... badly!

Brown algae in a cycling tank is normal and will clear up once the tank is cycled and the nitrates are removed. Be careful using chemicals to remove it as they could have an effect on the bacteria. As a general rule, the only chemical you should put in the tank is dechlorinator.