How many fish can safely be added at once?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

FallenAngel

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Aug 7, 2014
Messages
357
Location
Texas
I have a 30 gallon tank cycled and ready for stock. I have already added 3 Micky mouse Platys and 2 cories. I will have the opportunity to go by an amazing fish store later this week and was wondering how many fish I can get to add? They are an hour away. I am wanting to get 3 sparkling gouronamis and 3 panda cories but am worried I will be adding to many fish at once.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Yeah, if it is a newly cycled tank, you want to take it slow adding livestock.
If it has been going 6 months - 1 year, you can usually get away with adding more at one time.
 
I look at it this way. Your filters are primed for 5 fish and if you add another 6 then you more than double the loading. Your filter will need time for the BB to increase and deal with the increased waste. You could be super vigilant with your water testing and WCs as required but it would be a safer option to increase the stock more slowly. I personally never increase my stock by more than 10% at a time which is easier when the tank has 30+ fish. Not so easy when starting out.
Good luck with the shopping though, I still find it the best bit of fish keeping.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Hard to say since it all has to do with filtration and water changes.
What filter or filters are you using?
 
If you cycled fishless you could just wait and up your ammonia dosage to compensate, but yeah take it slow adding stock and let the filter catch up.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

"Nitrifying bacteria reproduce by binary division. Under optimal conditions, Nitrosomonas may double every 7 hours and Nitrobacter every 13 hours. More realistically, they will double every 15-20 hours. This is an extremely long time considering that heterotrophic bacteria can double in as short a time as 20 minutes. In the time that it takes a single Nitrosomonas cell to double in population, a single E. Coli bacterium would have produced a population exceeding 35 trillion cells."

The sparkling gouramis are very small and they don't eat much. They're kind picky...they like flake food crushed small but not too small. I think you'd be ok with them. But, since they will pair off. I'd get 4 and hope it worked out. I myself have 3 and wish I had 4 b/c one is always odd man out. If you get 4, I'd add them 2 at a time 2-3 days apart.

The panda, I'd add 1 at a time, 2-3 days apart. Cory eat a lot. They are always hungry so they make a bigger bio load.

After buying fish with VHS from my local fish store, I'd really recommend a minimum of 3 week QT. (Or at minimum a UV light in the tank.)


(Friend of Bill W., One day at a time)
 
http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

"Nitrifying bacteria reproduce by binary division. Under optimal conditions, Nitrosomonas may double every 7 hours and Nitrobacter every 13 hours. More realistically, they will double every 15-20 hours. This is an extremely long time considering that heterotrophic bacteria can double in as short a time as 20 minutes. In the time that it takes a single Nitrosomonas cell to double in population, a single E. Coli bacterium would have produced a population exceeding 35 trillion cells."

The sparkling gouramis are very small and they don't eat much. They're kind picky...they like flake food crushed small but not too small. I think you'd be ok with them. But, since they will pair off. I'd get 4 and hope it worked out. I myself have 3 and wish I had 4 b/c one is always odd man out. If you get 4, I'd add them 2 at a time 2-3 days apart.

The panda, I'd add 1 at a time, 2-3 days apart. Cory eat a lot. They are always hungry so they make a bigger bio load.

After buying fish with VHS from my local fish store, I'd really recommend a minimum of 3 week QT. (Or at minimum a UV light in the tank.)


(Friend of Bill W., One day at a time)


My only problem with this is the only fish store with panda cories and sparkling gouranamis is an hour away. Way to much gas wasted buying one at a time, I can't afford it


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
My only problem with this is the only fish store with panda cories and sparkling gouranamis is an hour away. Way to much gas wasted buying one at a time, I can't afford it


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

Get a ten gallon and cycle it fishless with some media off the thirty. You can house half the fish in the ten while the thirty catches up. Or keep all 6 in the ten since QT is favorable and keep up with water changes. After you're done you can sell the ten cheap or keep it as a QT tank and keep the filter cycled by running it on your 30.

I'm just saying you've got options.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Back
Top Bottom