A question on getting started

gregdh · Apr 28, 2015

I'm cycling my second aquarium and I'm getting ready to add fish but think I need to wait. On my first tank, I added fish when nitrates, nitrites and ammonia was at zero like all of the articles said. However I lost a lot of fish. I had the lfs test water and they also showed that all was well. I still don't know what the issue was. I ended up waiting another 2 or 3 weeks after seeing zeros before the fish stopped dying.

On my latest tank, my numbers are all at zero, ph is 8.2, and I'm in the middle of the algae growth phase.

First, should I add fish as soon as the algae goes away? Second I don't want to stall out the tank so is there a point where I need to add more nutrients? The shrimp I used to cycle is gone.

Hopefully this is just me being overly cautious but I don't want to go through the losses like last time. My first instinct is to wait but I also don't want to risk having the tank run out of nutrients (and I'm not sure if that if even possible).

Any comments or suggestions?

Tahoe61 · Apr 29, 2015

You do not have to worry about a stall or tank running out of nutrients. Add/stock slowly and watch feedings, have fresh SW made up for water changes.

Yes you may have no detectable ammonia or nitrites but once you add fish and their food the denutrifying bacteria is not quite up snuff yet, the bacteria bed needs to grow to accommodate the new bioload.

This is why I like small type hermits, add a few and feed them for a couple weeks. You're both testing the water and continuing to feed the biological filter.

Waters · Apr 29, 2015

You could always continue to ghost feed if you don't think the cycle is totally complete. Normally once you start seeing nitrates and both ammonia and nitrites are reading 0 you are good. That isn't always the case though....my tank never showed any nitrates and still doesn't. You could add your clean up crew now to keep the algae under control and continue to watch the water parameters.

gregdh · Apr 29, 2015

That's the thing that concerns me. Readings of zero but new fish all die within a couple of days. I think I'm going to wait for a bit before adding fish just to be safe.