Quick Question

[NathanS]

Hullo everyone!

After having a bit of trouble with the advice of an LFS (who sold me completely inappropriate fish for a new tank environment), I now have 4 lovely platies and a panda cory catfish swimming around.

A couple of questions: this is a fish-in cycle, and have used Tetra's SafeStart to boost the filter - ammonia has been between 0 and 0.25ppm (API master kit test set) and nitrites have been pretty much continually at 0, no noticeable spike at all thus far:

1) I bought these fish yesterday - when should I start feeding them?
2) How much should I feed? 1/2/3 flakes every 2 days?

 

[Marve99]

I have recently completed a cycle in a similar (3 platies and a catfish). I needed to do water changes most days (some times twice a day) to keep ammonia below 0.25 and it took alomst 3 weeks before I started to see nitrites.

I started to feed on the 2nd day, feeding every other day, just a few flakes so that they were eaten with a couple of minutes. I added pellets for the catfish also, although the platties prefer the pellets and the catfish likes the elft over flakes.LOL

PS - most threads I have read state that the filter boost is a waste of money, but hope it works for you.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have ammonia between 0 and 0.25 ppm on the first day after you added fish, you have more than enough fish to cycle the tank and it will be a lot of work if you want them all to survive. Make sure that you have plenty of dechlorinator on hand because it is a safe bet that you wasted your money on the bacteria in a bottle stuff. You will be doing lots of big water changes.

 

[NathanS]

If you have ammonia between 0 and 0.25 ppm on the first day after you added fish, you have more than enough fish to cycle the tank and it will be a lot of work if you want them all to survive. Make sure that you have plenty of dechlorinator on hand because it is a safe bet that you wasted your money on the bacteria in a bottle stuff. You will be doing lots of big water changes.

I'm unsure, I've already had the big spikes for ammonia and nitrite, now they are both nearly at 0 on most days with no significant rises that I can note, and nitrates are rising steadily. I'm using an API master test kit. Before adding these fish, I'd already had 5 cherry barbs and 5 rasboras in the tank.

 

[OldMan47]

If you have already completed a fish-in cycle over the past several weeks, the only thing you are seeing now is a spike from stocking too fast. You can only stock quickly after a fishless cycle, not a fish-in cycle. At 4 platies, 5 cherry barbs and 5 rasboras, you have much more fish in a 14 gallon than I would ever put into it. It may be possible to keep that many fish healthy if you are willing to put the work into the water changes and cleanings. I like to enjoy my fish so I try not to have them turn into a maintenance project like I suspect that will become.