Method Of Stocking A Tank

[LauraFrog]

The general recommendation is to add fish to a new tank very slowly. Practical Fish Keeping recommends that there be only half of the tank's eventual stocking in it at the end of the first six months. Well one of my mates does it very differently and he's never had a problem with it.

He fishless cycles then starts adding fish. He often has every fish he's going to put in it, in the tank at the end of the first month. But he buys tiny juveniles. He'll buy centimetre-long neons, chuck in half-grown livebearers, inch-long corydoras etc. Then he lets them grow up in the tank, gradually increasing the load on the filter.

Is there anything wrong with doing it this way?

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

nope! if the fish are fine then theres nothing wrong with it.
PFK is a commercial magazine and i'm pretty sure that thousands of people buy it so, if they're going to give out advice and information, they don't want to be gettin complaints about it being the wrong advice or information on the odd occasion that something does go wrong.
adding fish the PFK's way just slowly helps the filter media build up to coping with the load of waste the bacteria contained has to break down.
however, thorough cycling is important so before adding fish, you should always make sure to check the water constantly for about a week to make sure the chemistry is stable. once it's stablised, add a few fish and check it for a couple of more days. if all is fine, add a few more desired fish, check the water for the next couple of days. you can do this one more time if wanting to but i find after that, all will be fine... unless the tank is severly over stocked lol

 

[doresy]

Hi. When you follow the fishless cycle program properly you should eventually build up enough bacteria within your filter to process the ammonia and subsequent nitrite produced from maximum fish stocking level of that tank.

If you do not add pretty much all the fish stock that you intend to keep at that time then the excess bacteria will starve an die off. In other words, the bacteria will reduce to the level required to cope with the amount of fish that you have added. Any further fish that you add at a later date will have to be done so slowly, ie in small groups and over a period of time. This allows the bacteria colony to increase to cope with the higher amount of ammonia and subsequent nitrite produced.

Adding too many fish and too quickly in that situation will cause a "mini cycle" state.