Gotcha, I guess my real questin is how do you estimate the amount of ammonia to use for a fishless cycle in order to roughly match the amount of waste to be produced by the number of fish you wish to stock with?
LESSON LEARNED ABOUT QUARANTINING NEW FISH
- Thread starter platytetrafan
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I believe it explains it in detail in one of the "how to cycle" threads, but basically, no matter what size tank you have, you can use an ammonia test to dose it up to 5ppm ammonia, which is way more waste than a correctly stocked tank full of fish produces to get a colony of bacteria going, and then maintain that colony at 3ppm (still more waste than a fully stocked and properly fed tank would produce) until the cycle is finished with ammonia and nitrites both zeroing out overnight and a large amount of nitrates leftover that are cause for a large water change before the fish are actually stocked....the bacteria themselves attach to your filter media, substrate, and decorations, so the water change doesn't harm the huge colony you've built up to handle your new tank full of fish..and if you stock with less fish, the bacteria die off to adjust and additional fish should be quarantined and added gradually to avoid a mini-cycle like you were saying. But initially, right after completing the fishless cycle, theoretically you have enough bacteria to handle a full stock right off the bat. At least, this is my understanding of the process, someone correct me if I'm wrong 
My answer to that is.... you don't. As I understand it, you do the fishless cycle with 3-5 ppm ammonia until it's ready to go. After that, just add a few fish at a time, gradually. And keep monitoring the parameters. The bacteria colony has been established and beyond this, it's self-correcting. The initial waste load from real fish might be less at first than the level you've just cycled for. Okay, then some of the excess bacteria will die off. No big deal. That goes back up again, as you slowly add more fish later.
Once established, the tank is safe for live fish. Let the bacteria colony adjust itself automatically to handle the real load. That's how natural cycles work. Don't bother trying to estimate what the (theoretical) max load might be. There's really no way to tell because every tank is a unique system of it's own.
