Stocking Question

[zackish]

My aqaurium just finished cycling recently and I got my 2 dwarf blue gouramis today and 2 oto cats. It is a 29g.
I was originally planning on getting about 14 cardinal tetras give or take but my LFS is out until tuesday. Will my tanks bacteria stay large enough for a big load on wedsnday or tuesday or is it already starting to die down?
I might not even get to it till next weekend like saturday or something.
Bascially I am saying next weekend is my tank going to be able to handle 12 or so fish in at once. I did a fishless cycle so my understanding is that I could put my complete stocking list in there.

[gm72]

If you are going to be a few days I wouldn't add that many fish all at once. Even with a fishless cycle I tend to take things easy and add slowly, maybe adding 50% stocking, then 25% additional every week or so. You might be okay and probably will as long as you stay on top of your water testing.

[NeonJulie]

If you can, I would feed some extra, to help assist the bacteria colony to be there when you need it.

[zackish]

If you can, I would feed some extra, to help assist the bacteria colony to be there when you need it.


Feed it what, food or cocktail shrimp for ammonia?

[dev]

I wouldn't be very concerned. A group of kardinals isn't that much of a load, probably less than a couple of angels or a pleco.

Established colonies of nitrogen bactiria can quadrouple their numbers in just a few hours, provided they have enough surfaces to grow on.

[gm72]

No, bad idea. Extra food means uncontrolled ammonia production.

[dev]

No, bad idea. Extra food means uncontrolled ammonia production.

I think that was the idea - to keep the ammonia production up until the new fish arrives. I don't think it will be required.

There's a good hidden point here though. The biological load is decided by the amount of food added to a tank, rather than the amount of fish in it.

[NeonJulie]

I hardly think a few extra flakes are going to burst his present bacteria colonie's load. It's over-reactions like this that make people aggravated using forums, either for their post to be shot down without proper clarification, or just general dislike and negativity.

It's a common answer - he'll need to up his feeding when he puts the new fish in anyway. Are they never going to need food? I suppose if the fish arrive, and he feeds extra to componsate, a huge jump in ammonia will likely be seen? Isn't that a more probable event to happen, should bacteria colonies die, and then the large amount of fish are added?


One often recommended way of fishless cycling, is said to simply pretend you have fish, and feed the tank flakes or food, every day. (Now I tried this, and wouldn't recommend it because of the stink and the awful mess in the tank, when I have pure ammonia - but it is known to work.) I'll also tell you with a large amount of pre-soaking food, the highest blip of ammonia I ever got was .25ppm. (Another reason I switched to liquid.)

Can overfeeding cause ammonia to skyrocket? Probably, if you went way overboard or dropped the food bottle, as some have... but adding a few sprinkles? Seems highly unlikely. Inevitably, it's his tank, his fish, and his bacteria, and he will have to decide whether the idea will work for him or not.

EDIT: for clarification purposes - one would NEVER put straight ammonia into a tank with fish. Any fish. It's either fishless with ammonia, or other. So when someone says to up the feeding on a tank with fish, it should mean that, up the feeding... of the fish... as in flakes... (and not ammonia!) :O I would venture to say you do not want dead/rotting things in with your fish. (A missed body is a good way to get an unknown ammonia spike.) Again, once the fish go in, high levels of ammonia stay out. That's why feeding a few extra pinches of food is likely the most mild solution in feeding the bacteria.