When To Add Fish To A Heavily Planted Tank?

[N0body Of The Goat]

• Tank set up 12 days ago
• Initial plants added 8 days ago
• >50% initial plants taken back (were non-aquatic) and replaced with true aquatics 5 days ago
• Dennerle CO2 system added 5 days ago
• pH has dropped from 8.1 to ~7.2
• NO2 has peaked at 0.8
• NO3 has peaked at 110 (considering these last 2 figures, a 50-75% water is in order before adding fish, yes?)
• NH3 peaked at 0.1 (from fish food flakes, allowing some dead leaves to decay)
• A population of (nematode?) worms were spotted for the first time yesterday... No doubt from the abundant fish food!
• At least two, possibly three (Bladder?) snails are regularly seen, munching on the very fine layer of algae on tank walls
• Several species of plant are showing noticeable growth (unknown floater has a rapidly developing daughter; hairgrass has some strands that have almost doubled in size; Ludwigia[? has saw-edged leafs] stems are showing multiple buds etc.)

Today is my "floating day off" from my postal delivery round and I'm wondering if it would be inadvisable for me to think about getting a few fish today? Should I wait until Sunday, or perhaps another week?

I've read a few articles about adding Otos as the first fish in a planted tank, to help keep the algae in check before it possibly gets out of hand. It was only by spotting the clean snail trails that I became aware of any algae on the glass. Has anyone gone down this route?

 

[BackToTheFishes]

I read somewhere on here that heavily planted tanks don't need cycling.
IME otos are horribly sensetive.But maybe I just had bad fish.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

From my limited knowledge through reading about this hobby over the last six weeks, I would expect to put Otos in the same category as plecs, corys and invertibrates... To be added to a tank at least six weeks after a fully completed cycle. However, when I googled silent cycles, I came across several articles (wish I had bookmarked them now) which said they added Otos as the first fish.

I know Zebra Danios would be a very safe choice, but given my other stocking plans (all in poll) that I really want, I am a little relunctant to add six of them because the mid to upper levels of the tank are going to be quite busy anyway with the Rainbows and Halfbeaks.

I still have no definite choice for bottom dwellers, but that's no problem, as they will be the last stock to add. I'm still thinking about stock such as
African Fan Shrimp
Lionhead Cichlid
Agassizii Dwarf Cichlid
African Thomasi Butterfly Cichlid
Indian Redtail Squirrel / Zebra / Dwarf Chain / Kuhli Loaches
Sterbai Cory
Rabbit Snails
Malaysian Trumpet Snails

 

[BackToTheFishes]

Yeah I read the same here about otos,thats why I tried again,no luck,so maybe its something about the lfs or my water that doesnt agree with them,never had any probs with other fish.I was looking at fan shrimp,are they not a bit tricky to feed?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

The fan shrimp filter nutrients out of the water flow, so they need amature tank, so i read.

 

[BackToTheFishes]

ah cool,a more interesting/different addition to a tank then

 

[Bobtastic]

If you're adding pressurised Co2 you could crank that up to a level that is dangerous to the fishies and leave it for a week and give the plants a week of high light, Co2 and ferts then add the fishies.

 

[ian]

i think you've had the c02 on high haven't you?

anyway's go get the Danios today, hardy little buggas.

I would also leave the Otos until you get at least some Diatoms.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Yep, the bubble rate has been at least 30, sometimes upto 60 first thing before lighting up the T5s.

Besides 1cm of Deponitmix under the sand, I did add "5 squirts" of Dennerle "S7" liquid fertilizer at the weekend.

I might have a small colony of diatoms on the Anubias barteri nana, which are still in the substrate (riazome above sand I think), as there is a fine brownish layer on there leaves. Even so, I think any Otos can wait.

I'm a little confused about the water test results I just got...
pH 7.6 (could have sworn it was 7.2 two days ago, maybe I've not done such long periods of "fast bubble rate" CO2?)
NH3 0-0.1 (despite adding fish food before introducing plants and giving another generous pinch every 2 days, yet to see any sort of spike... Perhaps plants prevented any spike, as they were added 3 days after setting up tank?)
NO2 1.6 or 3.3 mg/l [brightish purple, does not really match any colour on Nutrafin chart that well] (presumeably from fertilizer or degrading dead leaves? Or maybe there are some ammonium processing bacteria, but few nitite after 10 days?)
NO3 50 or 110 mg/l [very bright purple, not sure about this one at all from Nutrafin scale] (presumeably from Deponitmix, fertilizer and/or decaying leaves?)
gH 12 drops= 240mg/l ---> 220*0.056= 13.44 (slight decrease since day1)
kH 21 drops= 210mg/l ---> 210*0.056= 11.76 (1 drop increase since day1)

Edit: What about Bloodfin Tetra as the first fish? Will school more, plus more likely to swim at all levels, not to mention complement the Neon Dwarf's red fins!

 

[ian]

Right if you're gonna silent cycle, then don't add anymore fish food, it doesn't make a deal of difference. Get some nice hardy (danio) and acclimatise them slowly. Don't worry to much about the water stats, let the plants do there work.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Just done a ~75% water change and I'm amazed at how clear the water looks! The original water must have been loaded with tannins from the bogwood!

Got the CO2 system at 60 bubbles a minute, in the flow of both the Juwel 1000 pump outlet and the Koralis 1, to try and speed up re-saturation for the plants.

Going to grab lunch and then head to LFS, still not such what I'm going to do!

 

[GAB99]

Yeah I read the same here about otos,thats why I tried again,no luck,so maybe its something about the lfs or my water that doesnt agree with them,never had any probs with other fish.I was looking at fan shrimp,are they not a bit tricky to feed?

otos are wild caught so basically its a hit or miss imo

i could see why the otos are added first for their size they produce very little ammonia so iguess it could be a good choice

 

[aaronnorth]

The idea of a silent cycle is that you plant up 75% substrate coverage, then add the fish a couple of days later once you know everything is running smoothly. You should also be doing 50% water changes at least 3 times per week (the more the better) so you shouldnt be seeing any NH3/ NO2 readings, or at least they should not be anywhere near that high which means you are not doing it properly.

6inches of fish per week is ok (obviously depending on the tank size).

My first addition was 4 x botia striata, then I added 6 x 2" fish every week until I built up sufficient numbers for the size of shoal I wanted.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I ended up not getting fish the other day, as the nitrite level (tested by LFS) was 0.3, but things have changed for the better when testing at home last night...

Nitrite now matches the pale purple/pink colour of the Nutrafin chart, the lowest concentration colour of 0.1!

After I get back from my mail delivery round, I shall do another set of tests to confirm things still look good and if so, I think I will be bringing the LFS' Celebes Rainbow school home (2 males, 3 females) and a couple of Rabbit Snails!

As an extra precaution, I think I will add the SafeStart before I head of to the LFS, to give these guys a little insurance cover.

I have a minor moral dilemma about what to do about the single male Forktail Blue-Eye (furcata) Rainbow that has been with the Celebes in the tank providing my water parameters are safe for introductory fish today... He appears to have been accidentally mixed in with the Celebes from the LFS' supplier delivery, with no other species mates in the shop! Considering he is a loner, he looks quite happy, with a nice rosy coloured throat and happily displays to the Celebes males and females. I would feel a little guilty leaving him behind with just Red Tail Shark babies for company!

If I did get the five Celebes and the one furcata, I know another LFS has at least two female Celebes (which would give a better 2:5 male/female ratio) and loads of young furcatas (so the confused male gets to have five new friends), which I can buy and put in quarantine before adding them to the community tank in two weeks time.

 

[ian]

just be careful with Celebes, they are very sensitive to chemical changes in water.