55G Stocking Suggestions

[waterdrop]

Yes, I think mattlee's caution is well-founded. We see lots of cycles each month and follow them through. Its quite rare to see a full successful cycle in 3 weeks and often those are ones with mature media added. Its more common for us to see cycles taking over a month or slightly over 2 months.

You have a nice sized tank with not many fish in at the moment which could mean a couple of things. It could indeed be that your fishfood has given you a nice start for them and they are just a small enough bioload that you will have a fish-in cycle hardly needing water changes. On the other hand the large size of the tank and filter compared to this initial bioload may be simply delaying the point at which you will finally be able to see the sharper spikes of the cycling process.

A wait and see attitude before adding any more fish could really pay off here and of course nothing is really lost if it continues to tell you that its really cycled.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drobbyb]

We just want to make sure that your start in the hobby is a successful one. Having tortured many fish when I was cutting my teeth and the disappointment associated with repeated failure, this advice would do you well. At the very least, get some pure household ammonia with no dyes perfumes or surfectants and add to 4ppm. This is the only humane way you will know for sure and the ammonia only costs a dollar or two. If you have to add the full 4 ppm every day for a week, then you know you are safe to add fish.

 

[waterdrop]

No, he's already fish-in I believe, Robby, but he's testing and watching. WD

 

[drobbyb]

Oh, that changes things! I need to stop skimming lol

 

[OldMan47]

No more skimming, it can confuse people quickly if we make assumptions about the situation.
It sounds like you may have established a small population cycle on your filter to me. That means that your present fish population may be all that the filter can support. I would watch it at least another week as WD suggested and then approach stocking cautiously. If all is well after that week, add maybe 20 to 30% more biological load and no more, then monitor the new tank stocking for at least a week before adding any more. You only get to add to the population when you have a full week of zero ammonia and zero nitrites at the current population. Even then, the new biological load should be no more than 20 to 30% of what you have had in that stable tank.