New Tank!

[Tory]

Hi all, just looking for a bit of advice.

Im upgrading to a rather large tank (wo0o!!) and am going to use water from my current tank, and filter media and gravel from an old tank.

Here is the question - Now once I have filled up, run through the cycle and have the water tested, should I just add my fish a few at a time or can they all go in? Dont want "new tank syndrome" with all my established fish

Any help would be gratefully receieved !

Thanks!

 

[mixmaster jay]

your best off bit by bit imo

 

[Tory]

your best off bit by bit imo

Thanks for that

 

[ellena]

As I understand it, if you do a fishless cycle, you then add the fish up to full stocking all at once.
When you are cycling you are building up a colony of bacteria large enough to handle the full load for that size tank. If you then just add a few fish, all those bacteria you've been carefully growing will start to die as there won't be enough ammonia to feed them and you will have a mini cycle each time you add more fish.

 

[m00se]

If you do a proper fishless cycle, and your filter colony is processing 5ppm of ammonia down to 0ppm of ammonia and 0ppm of nitrIte in 12 hours, then you can go ahead and add your full fish load right away. If it's not doing that, it's not cycled!