My fishless cycle is progressing!!

[Anne L.]

Hey, everyone, my cycle is finally progressing!

Ammonia is still 0, and the nitrites were down to 0.3 this evening from being 1.6 or higher for the last little while.

I was starting to get discouraged, but now I see the light getting brighter at the end of the tunnel. Maybe we'll have fish by the weekend.

Woo Hoo!

:D

[TKOS]

Thta's great news! Don't forget to keep feeding those ammon ia until the fish get in the tank and do a water change before you go out to buy them. Those fish will love you for having such a nice home reading for them.

[Anne L.]

TKOS, I'm feeding about 1 ml of ammonia every day and just waiting. I'll get a nitrate kit too fairly soon and I know about the big water change.

What do you think of this for stocking the tank?
3 cories
3 tetras - glowlight or headlight/taillight
3 rasboras - harlequin
2 otos (will these add much to the bioload or will they be ok)

Will the tetras and rasboras be happy in a smaller group like this; I'd like to have a small variety of fish if possible.

My plan is to add the tetras first, then rasboras, and finally cories/otos. I know you can put all of the fish in right away, but I'd like to take my time because I'm such a newbie about this.

My kids are very excited now as you might guess.

:)

[TKOS]

That sounds fine to me. Some may say overstocked but I think that you will be okay as long as you are diligent with water quality (and so far it looks like you are prepared to do that :) ).

Those groups are on the small side but they are all friendly fish and should do fine IMO. The rasboras may even end up schooling witht he tetras, it does happen. I would go glowlight if it were my tank, a little more peaceful IME.

Wait a bit on the ottos. They do best in a well established planted tank with a little algae growing. They can be tempermental at first and quite often die off easily. From what I have read this is due to the way they are shipped. They require a bacteria in their gut to process the algae. If starved for too long this bacteria will die and the otto can't process food anymore. I would give the tank a few months before considering them.

If you are adding fish slowly like you say then make sure to keep testing the water. There will probably be a little die back of the bacteria as the food supply gets lower so it will have to build back up a bit for each addition.

[Anne L.]

TKOS, so is it better to add all the fish then over a couple of days? I wasn't sure, but it sounds like it is from what you are saying. I'm not sure about this part at all. So could I add the tetras one day and the rasboras the next and then get the cories another weekend? I'm thinking of stocking the tank over 2 weekends just because of time limitations on my part. It's hard to get to the fish store during the week because I have small kids who need their sleep and have to do homework and such.

I am tending toward the glowlights as well, and not so sure about the otos. I likely won't stock them if they are difficult to keep.

Am I overstocked then if I have 3 cories, 3 tetras, and 3 rasboras?

Yipes, so many questions yet!

[TKOS]

I wouldn't say overstocked at all. That fish load will be easy to keep with no troubles as logn as you change a small bit of water every week. I have 3 cories with 5 white clouds and the tank can go for 3 weeks without a water change (useful for vacation time). I normally do a 10% change everyweek though.

If you want to do it on 2 weekends then I would get all of the tetras and rasboras on the same day and introduce them at teh same time. Just float the bag and over the course of an hour or so scoop a little bag water out and throw it away. Replace it with tank water until all of the bag is tank water and dump in the fish. I like this better than tryin to net the fish out of the bag which I find stresses them out a lot. Just make sure not to get any of the fish store water into the bag.

If you don't want to float the bag then try using a clean piece of tupperware (washed without soap) and empty the entire contents of the fish store water bag into it. Set it near the tanka dn do the scooping method of water replacement.

This gets your fish used to the new water conditions slowly so they aren't shocked.

[Anne L.]

The tupperware idea sounds really good to me. I have a big bowl that I will wash with really hot water and use. It might be easier than floating the bag in the tank, and then I don't have to net them out.

Now if only the tank will go to 0 levels by this weekend, that would be perfect.

[anonapersona]

I agree that adding most of the fish at the same time is best, that's why you did the ammonia thing.

Dump the fish and store water in a bowl, and adjust temperature as described. I do suggest that at the end you net the fish out -- yes it is a bit hard in a round bowl with a square net, but you can use your hand to chase them into the net if you have to.

Store water may have parasites or disease that you don't want to add to the tank. True, the fish will have been exposed to that already, but like you shaking hands with someone with a cold, if you get rest and fresh food and fresh air you may not get sick from that. Similar for the fish, in your clean tanks with lots of room and fresh water and good food, they may not get sick with things they were exposed to.

Since you will get them at the same time from the same store, they probably have been exposed to the same stuff at the store, next week something new may be there that you don't want to import to your tank.

[TKOS]

That is why I said to makje sure that it is 100% tank water in the end. If there is anything that bad in the bowl it will probably get on the net anyway, IMO.

[Anne L.]

Now this is REALLY DUMB, but how do you make sure that the water in the bowl or bag is 100% tank water? I can't quite get my head around that. Do you just estimate the volume of water before you start?

[TKOS]

Well I figure after an hour or 2 of 10-20% water changes every so often the actual volumn of store water is tiny and not worth worrying about. If it is a super worry then it is time to dig out the quarentine tank that you may have read about.

[Anne L.]

I suppose that makes sense. And if I'm getting the fish from the same store, they would be used to the water anyway. Hopefully there's nothing nasty there I have to worry about. I'll just make sure that their fish and tanks look good which they did the other day.

[Anne L.]

I tested the tank tonight and the nitrites are at 0.1 or even lower. Just the faintest blush of pink in the water. Ammonia is still at 0. I see fishies in our tank this weekend! Yay!!

I've also got wine brewing here which is on its way too. Just one big chemistry experiment in our house lately.