Neons and clean up crew

[Ekrindul]

My 55 gallon has been up and running for 2 weeks now with 2 cycled canister filters. All my hardier fish went it the day after setup--the krib, danios, platy, cory, sae and all have done fine. I moved my 4 dwarf honey gouramis today into the tank and they are behaving like healthy gouramis do.

Should it be ok to go ahead and move my neon tetras, otos and amanos over, or should I wait a bit longer?

 

[Gerryd]

I have found that adding the fish say 6-8 every few days works well....

Two weeks is not a long cycle time.....4 is better..if you do a few at a time, it doesn't overwhelm the bacteria bed and cause potential issues...

 

[Biollante]

Patience!

Hi,

I would certainly give it a couple more weeks, as Gerry says a few at a time. :gw

Biollante

 

[Ekrindul]

I have found that adding the fish say 6-8 every few days works well....

Two weeks is not a long cycle time.....4 is better..if you do a few at a time, it doesn't overwhelm the bacteria bed and cause potential issues...

Ok. Let me qualify a few of my statements and see if you guys still feel the same. If so, I'm going to side with you, because I don't think it's wise to listen to yourself when it comes to stocking schedules as you can talk yourself into doing something stupid out of excitement or impatience.

The two canisters have both been in use for about 16 months with a full load of fish for the tanks they were cleaning, so they have good bacteria cultures. In fact, I used some of the biomedia from these filters to seed a small canister and never saw anything more than trace nitrates. The substrate on the 55 gallon is new, as I went from gravel on the old tank to EC on this one, but I added two full cups of mulm. My plant mass starting out is pretty good with several mature plants.

 

[Gerryd]

Hi,

I stand by my original advice....I agree that your bacteria bed is much better with the steps you took than if just started 2 weeks ago, but better safe than sorry....

where are all these fish coming from? A smaller tank or the LFS?

BTW, that is a nice tank....

 

[Ekrindul]

I had a 36 gallon and a 26 gallon bow front. I've torn down the 36 and replaced with a 55 gallon long, seen above. Next I'm tearing down the 26 gallon and replacing with a 20 gallon long that will be a tank for my krib and a mate and probably all my platy.

I'm still not satisfied with the plant selection in the 55 gallon. I will keep the ploysperma in the center behind the anubias, but the difformis doesn't suit my vision of the tank, nor does the rosette sword. I will probably replace the spot with the rosette with the crypts from my 26 gallon once I tear it down. I may replace the amazons and the red rubin with a larger section of ambulia. Cannot figure out what to put on the right side once the difformis goes though. Considering rotala rotundifolia, but never had it before.

The 20 gallon long will be mostly sword plants, anubias and java ferns using driftwood and slate to create a few caves. I may cover most of the middle and foreground with microsword, but again, have never grown it, so it might not work out.

 

[Ekrindul]

Well, since I cannot work on the new tank yet, I did some rescaping and added some new plants and a few bits of hardscape. It's a bit messy (my koralias are full of roots and stems) but tomorrow is WC day, so ...