How to maintain cycle for a few days

**Tanichthys** · 07-14-2010, 01:25 AM

Quick question--
I lost all but one fish in a 10g due to excessive heat. I'm not restocking for a little while and want to maintain the nitrogen cycle. Will one cory and 5 pond snails be adequate? Should I overfeed to encourage ammonia production? I plan to add 3-4 small shellies all at once next week.
Thanks!

**Cliff** · 07-14-2010, 01:31 AM

You should be OK with everything as is and if you add one fish every two weeks.

Just keep a close eye on your ammoina, nitrite, and nitrate for a while

**Tanichthys** · 07-14-2010, 01:38 AM

The problem is that I'm adding shellies, and I've heard that the best way to keep aggression low is to put them all in at once. So basically I need to maintain a decent bioload in the meantime. Is that possible?

**Lab_Rat** · 07-14-2010, 02:01 AM

Dose it with ammonia or a frozen prawn like you would with fishless cycling. The cycle will hold as long as it is fed.

**Lady Hobbs** · 07-14-2010, 12:17 PM

You currently have a fish in there now, right? I think LR missed that part because dumping ammonia in there will kill him. I would just add those shellies then dose with a bac booster and watch your tank. You are limited right now in what you can do with that one fish in there.

Do you have sand in the tank for the shellies?

**Tanichthys** · 07-14-2010, 12:54 PM

Yes, I do have one remaining peppered cory in there, although he is going to be given a new home when the shellies arrive. He's just there to maintain the cycle, and I could remove him now and dose with ammonia if necessary. For the last few days I was just feeding him extra hoping it would help.

RE sand, I made up a mixture of aragonite and black sand. Unfortunately the aragonite is not as crushed as I thought it would be (ordered online), so while it's not as big as gravel, it might be too big for them to really move around like sand. The black sand is much smaller, but tends to sink to the bottom of the substrate when moved. Hopefully it will work ok--it's raised the ph nicely.

**Lady Hobbs** · 07-14-2010, 12:56 PM

Then I would do that......and add just a couple drops of ammonia each day until the day before you get your fish and make sure it has dropped back to 0.