fishless cycling...

[houndour]

Hi,

My cycle finished yesterday. I went to get fish but came home empty handed and last night I added a tiny bit of ammonia to keep it going. Today my boyfriend is going to get the fish.

Now on the fishless cycling sticky i believe it says to add the full stock of fish once it's cycled.

But I've had it in my head for the past month that I would be introducing the fish gradually at 2 or 3 a week or 2 weeks.

Someones just said I should fully stock the tank otherwise if not enough ammonia is produced by the fish then my tank will have another mini cycle.

What do people recommend? Can anyone talk from experience?

Here's the list of fish I want to get:
2 dwarf gourami (1m, 1f)
6 cory metae
2-3 botia striata or histrionica
and then maybe 3 male guppies if water is OK.

My boyfriend is going in a couple of hours and I've told him to get:
2 dwarf gouramis
OR
3 cory metae
OR
2-3 botia
(depending what they have)

Sam

 

[houndour]

Oh well, nobody has replied.

My boyfriend has called. The gouramis are being acclimatised, so they arent for sale yet.

They have botia straita and the metae He's going to get 3 of each.

I hope this isn't too much for the tank.

The woman in the shop didnt seem happy about us getting any of the fish for a new tank. She wanted us to get danios or mollys or something.

I thought the idea of fishless cycling was so that the fish do not go through stress of cycling.

I'll feel awful if any die now. I shall check my water parameters every other day for a couple of weeks...just to check the tank doesnt cycle again.

 

[Ferris]

Stock it gradually, don't add all your fish in one go, this could overload the biological balance. Your tank won't re-cycle unless you drastically change the balance of the tank like replacing all the gravel or the filter.

The 3 botias and 3 corys will be a good start.

 

[Y2J]

I dunno but i would think it would be okay because my tank was 10 days old when i introduced fish. 5 zebra danios and 5 platies and 12 days later(today) the tank has finished cycling i think.. the ammonia is no more at least.. no nitrite readings..so i would think anyway that your tank can handle the fish u ve just bought!

EDIT - i forgot to say the fish are all happy and well

 

[houndour]

The 3 botias and 3 corys will be a good start.

Oh I'm glad you think so. I was worrying about what to do, so I kinda went in the middle. (we were originally going to get just 3 botias or 3 corys).

I really hope they get along. I thought getting 3 botias might be better than 2 as everyone says they should really be in groups of 4...and this might help them not bother the corys. My tank is quite heavily planted, although I may get some more pieces of bogwood that can act as a cave.

 

[sinistral]

The woman in the shop didnt seem happy about us getting any of the fish for a new tank. She wanted us to get danios or mollys or something.

IME the majority of people who work in a chain petstore, or even sometimes the LFS, have never heard of a fishless cycle and don't understand the chemistry behind it. The bottom line is that you've done it correctly and have conditions that are hospitable for new fish

One nice thing about fishless cycling is that the amount of ammonia you are adding to the tank typically exceeds the amount of ammonia a large quantity of fish could put out. So, you can add a full bioload immediately.

However, there may be other considerations (territoriality for one, cost of fish for another ) that might sway you to adding them more slowly. In this case, there's no problem with adding fish gradually. The bacterial colonies grown in during fishless cycling will adjust to the bioload, whether that's light or full. As Ferris said, as long as you stock gradually after adding the fish, most of the time there isn't a problem with having a minicycle. HTH~

P.S. Did you check nitrates or do a large water change before adding fish? Typically at the end of a cycle nitrates are sky-high...

 

[rdd1952]

If you did a proper fishless cycle:

Adding ammonia to bring levels to 4 to 6 ppm
Waiting on that to drop back to around 1 ppm and then adding again
Waiting until the ammonia dropped back in about 12 hours
Waiting on the nitrite spike to finally drop
Doing the big water change to remove nitrates

You should definitely add all or as close to all the fish as you can. You tank would be cycled for a full bio load. If you add only a few fish, they won't produce enough waste to keep the bacteria colony alive so all but enough to handle the fish added will die off. Then when you add the next group, you will start a mini cycle just like doing a cycle with fish. The advantage to doing a fishless cycle is that the tank is ready for all the fish at once.

Edit: See the pinned topic in the beginners forum. You have to go down a few posts to find the true part about cycling but it also says to add a large portion of your fish.

 

[houndour]

I did do a big water change. I checked my Nitrates the night before and they are really high.

The fish seem very happy...exploring the tank. One of the corys looks a little sad but he has perked up now.

I have pictures in the photo forum if anyone wants to see