Newbie

[fishsupper]

Hi everyone, I am nearing the end of my fishless cycle and im off on holiday tomorrow for 10 days the problem that i have is i will not be able to continue adding ammonia as i have moved to a new house in the country and i dont know anyone long enough to trust them to do it for me

been cycling from the 22nd of may
75l tank
tank water stats
ph7.6
ammonia 0ppm topped up to 4ppm
nitrites 0ppm in about 15 hours
nitrates 80-100ppm
kh 9
gh12
What i wanted to know if i got an automatic feeder and got fish tonight say 6 zebra danios and 6 black widow tetras would my fluval 2 plus filter be able to cope with the ammonia and nitrites till i got back because i wouldnt want to spoil my cycle after all the work ive put into it any advice would be very grateful

 

[Fishy_7]

I think that is quite a lot of fish to start off with. I would go with either the group of Tetras or the Danios. Better to be safe than sorry...

 

[fishsupper]

my LFS told me i might get away with it because when your doing your fishless cycle and adding 4ppm of ammonia its pretty much able to cope with 3inch of fish rule so a 1 inch per fish rule should be ok.Im not sure if thats true so was looking for a second opinnion. Im not to sure what he is on about with the per inch rule so could someone explain that one for me thanks in advance

 

[fishncan]

Your LFS wants to sell you fish. Slow is the best way to go at first. I suggest you start with the danios....they are great 'guinea pigs'

 

[Fishy_7]

You can get the Danios, wait a week to see how they settle, then go for the Tetras. You have waited this long, what is a week??

 

[waterdrop]

I think there is no 3-inch fish rule. There is a very rough 1-inch per US gallon fish guideline meant to be a starting point when discussing stocking with beginners. As any aquarist becomes more familiar with the many exceptions, they realize that there is little usefulness in the long run and truth is "all over the place." The fishless cycling method outlined in our wonderful article by RDD here on TFF is meant to get you to the starting gate for something more like the 1-inch guideline. But ideally, most will understock at first and allow some of the bacterial colonies to die back a little, because even the fully qualified fishless cycled filter is still somewhat preliminary and fragile - this holds true for several months even and the advice I've heard is to understock and then add new fish in only small quantities of maybe 4-fish-inches or less at a time with plenty of time in between each of these - very conservative, but there you have it.

~~waterdrop~~