Stocking Question After Fishless Cycle

[mancin]

I fishless cycled my tank and planned on fully stocking immediately, however ran into some issues with availability and delays, so partially stocked the tank on 3/6. I have more fish coming tomorrow (3/11) and the remaining fish coming (hopefully) on 3/13.
 
Do I need to be concerned about bacteria die off as it will be taking one week to fully stock? I think I'll be OK, but just wanted some confirmation.

 

[RRaquariums]

Well to be honest even after a cycle it's best to stock slowly that way the good bacteria gets a chance to grow with the fish rather then get flooded with waist so if you do get all the fish at once you need to do lots of water changes for a while until the bacteria gets a chance to catch up with the waist produced.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Sorry but that is absolutely false. Stocking fully at the end of a proper fishless cycle is perfectly gfine to do. there is no need to wait. It is one of the two reason for doing a fishless cyle in the first plece, the other being no fish can be harmed.
 
Without knowing what specific fish are going in at each stahe and what size they are, it is hard to say one way or the other as to whether you might see a mini-spike or not. You are probable OK assuming there isn't a major imbalance in the bio-load going in with the greatest part being the final addition.
 
Bear in mind the bacteria do not die off fast, that there is some ammonia and nitrite being produced and you will hit the 100% level inside of 7 or 8 days from completing the cycle. Finally, if you cycled the tank to a 3 ppm worth of ammonia processing level you had more bacteria than needed for a full stocking (I assume you did it correctly).
 
If you are worried, just test for ammonia one or twice over the 36 hours following the addition of fish. Do not worry about smaller ammonia readings such as .25 or .5 ppm as, if you even see these, they should vanish pretty fast.

 

[mancin]

Sorry I did a bit of a post and run the other day. Quick update: final fish arrived yesterday (a day early). Tested levels after 24 hours and everything looks perfect. Will probably check once more tonight for my own peace of mind but I think all is well.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I will always check for roughly a week after adding a large number of fish. 
 
 
TTA is correct - after a fishless cycle, the bacteria will last for quite a while before dying back.  And the level of bacteria cultured during a fishless cycle are more than sufficient for a full bioload. 
 
 
One of the major benefits of the fishless cycle is that you CAN fully stock the tank right from the beginning.  (The reason for not adding some fish is that some are more sensitive to 'immature' - not meaning uncycled - tanks than others.)  This is a great benefit for folks without a quarantine tank... as buying fish from a single source all at once means that you don't take the chance of adding new pathogens to the tank when adding new fish.  Spacing the additions over the course of a few weeks means that you run the risk of adding disease every time you add new fish.