can I cycle with a school of tiger barbs?

its best to do a fishless cyle for the sake of the fish's health, but even then, you shouldnt cycle with tiger barbs.

add a pinch of flake food every 3 or 4 days and that should be fine for the cycle. you should get a test kit if you do not have one already so you can test your water parameters and know when your tank is fully cycled.

tiger barbs do best in a school of ten or more to keep the agression down.
 
I cycle with fish most of the time but it is more time consuming and takes much longer. I do water changes every day and only use like 3 gold fish for my 45 gal. It takes a lot longer this way becouse I don't let the water go bad.
 
Plus I wouldn't add those tiger barbs unless you plan for them to be the sole occupants of that tank. There just isn't enough room for a school of barbs and any other type of fish.
 
I highly recommend cycling with fish, and it only takes a month, but do it with either comets or rosy reds, it's cheaper.
 
a pinch of fish food every few days costs almost nothing, and the tank will cycle faster; you can let the ammonia and nitrite spike as high as they want without worry that you are harming your fish.

ammonia and nirtrite WILL burn the fish's gills and make it harder for them to obtain oxygen from the water.
 
I tried to cycle with a school of five tiger barbs, it went really really bad. They kept dying except for one, and I had to keep going to the fish shop to exchange...they're only about a mile away. The one that did survive was so active and territorial, it made the other fish even more stressed out and without food, they all died with their mouths open really big, it was a horrible sight. Now I'm cycling without fish, it's the best way to go
 
jm1212 said:
a pinch of fish food every few days costs almost nothing, and the tank will cycle faster; you can let the ammonia and nitrite spike as high as they want without worry that you are harming your fish.

ammonia and nirtrite WILL burn the fish's gills and make it harder for them to obtain oxygen from the water.
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About how long would you think it'd take for a tank to cycle this way with fish food. I'm trying to cycle my 2 5 gallon topfin tank setups, and I don't want to wait for ever. Ive even thought about using bio-spira however we don't have a job aat the time and 16.00 is alot of money at the moment.
 
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