When To Add Fish To A Heavily Planted Tank?

[N0body Of The Goat]

LOL, seems I jumped the gun with my safe nitrites level! Just got back from work and its now pale pink rather than purple, so its now a definite 0.3... Will do a 50% water change either later today or in the morning and take it from there...

Must confess that while out on the round, I did start to think that Katubu Rainbows (yes, Niel's recent pics put these guys back on the menu) would be a better choice than the Celebes as first fish.

One thing that concerned me a little about about the Celebes is that the submissive male has his upper black dorsal display fin missing. Is this likely to grow back and if so, over how much time?

 

[fish_tank0311]

I really like the dwarf rainbows, but i just hate the orange/red colour variation, and thats all i can seem to find, apart from the odd one thats a little bit yellow like the one up top here on the TFF logo thing. And i always see them in planted tanks at fish shops, so they must suit the tank.

 

[RadaR]

I echo Aaron's words.

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).

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

The six Pearl danios are doing fine so far, with toxic chemical readings being good.

I strongly now supsect that the nitrite peak that held me off buying fish a week ago was a consequence of the generous amounts of fish food I was adding to the water before getting the plants and for a few days after up until ~10 days ago, which came about by confusion regarding fishless cycling and then what to do once plants were installed. As what I believe is quite normal, the ammonia processing bacteria along with the plants prevented any noticeable ammonia spike, but the nitrite processing lagged behind.