dartos
New Member
First a little background for my question:
I am currently in the middle of a fishless cycle and I have reached the nitrite spike. I have reached 5 ppm of NO2 (this is as high as my test kit will measure). So, I have been thinking about the fish that I want to be buying for my tank.
My question is how much of a bioload can I put in the tank to start? Currently my Nirosomonas colony is able to take 4 ppm of NH3 (NH4+) and consume that down to 1 ppm in about a 24 hour period. I am assuming that this colony will only get larger and be able to consume more NH3 as the cycling continues, and the same will go for the Nitrobacter colony as it grows, but has yet to consume the NO2.
My master plan is to continue the fishless cycling a few days (possibly a week) beyond the nitrite spike in order to get a better idea as to how much my new biological filter can handle. So my question to all of you is once I determine about how much NH3 can be consumed within a matter of hours, how will I know how that will translate into the amount of fish? I realize that different kinds of fish create different amounts of waste, so I guess the answer that I am looking for is about how much of your final amount of fish can you initially add to the tank and still be within reason for your biological filter. I realize that I could simply slowly create my community but part of the reason for the fishless cycle was to be able to add the fish that I wanted after the cycle was complete.
For reference, I only have a 10 gallon tank with an AquaClear 20 HOB and live plants. Thank you to anyone that can help me with this somewhat specific question.
I am currently in the middle of a fishless cycle and I have reached the nitrite spike. I have reached 5 ppm of NO2 (this is as high as my test kit will measure). So, I have been thinking about the fish that I want to be buying for my tank.
My question is how much of a bioload can I put in the tank to start? Currently my Nirosomonas colony is able to take 4 ppm of NH3 (NH4+) and consume that down to 1 ppm in about a 24 hour period. I am assuming that this colony will only get larger and be able to consume more NH3 as the cycling continues, and the same will go for the Nitrobacter colony as it grows, but has yet to consume the NO2.
My master plan is to continue the fishless cycling a few days (possibly a week) beyond the nitrite spike in order to get a better idea as to how much my new biological filter can handle. So my question to all of you is once I determine about how much NH3 can be consumed within a matter of hours, how will I know how that will translate into the amount of fish? I realize that different kinds of fish create different amounts of waste, so I guess the answer that I am looking for is about how much of your final amount of fish can you initially add to the tank and still be within reason for your biological filter. I realize that I could simply slowly create my community but part of the reason for the fishless cycle was to be able to add the fish that I wanted after the cycle was complete.
For reference, I only have a 10 gallon tank with an AquaClear 20 HOB and live plants. Thank you to anyone that can help me with this somewhat specific question.
... your very analytical .. like myself 
