Fish-in cycle stocking options?

[WCAlexander]

Ive been fighting a losing battle with ph with my 45 gallon tank and come to the conclusion my water was too hard to do anything much to. Ive successfully lowered it from 8.2 to around 7.6 by swapping RO water for my hard well water. I figure if I add a high ratio of RO water to well water whenever I do a water change I should be fine. But now my tank has been sitting empty for over a month and I am not sure I can stomach waiting another for fishless cycling. So I want to get some fish that can stand the ph fairly well, not tear up my plants, and will do alright with the crayfish I eventually want.
At a local fish shop they have a tank full of tiny fish, I think immiture cloud mountain minnows and danios? They are very cheap so I was wondering if these would be alright and if not what some better options would be.

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[Mebbid]

What exactly was your problem with your previous tank? There's nothing at all that's inherently wrong with an 8.2 pH, nor is there anything wrong with hard water. It's possible that your problems stemmed from trying to adjust the pH of the tank causing swings in water chemistry more than the numbers being too high.

Has the tank and filter been running all this time? If so, there's a good possibility that at least some of the bacterial load has survived.

Next, 1 small fish per 10 gallons is enough to cycle the tank. I would however go with fish that are in your stocking plan. What fish were you wanting to put in the tank?

 

[WCAlexander]

The fish shop wanted me to bring down my ph, there wasn't anything planned so much for stocking except the crayfish and some things that can flit around ab9ve it and not get caught, those cloud m8nnows would be fine I think, but they are currently very small. Should I add more because 9f their size or would 4.5 be fine?

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[Mebbid]

Yeah, in the future stop fiddling with your ph. Stability is far far more important than hitting a specific number and pretty much cheaper all commonly kept fish do great at 8.2.

Keep in mind that the minnows being keptbin packed conditions are more likely to bring diseasr into your tank that can easily be transferred over to new fish when you start actual stocking. Its far far better to start with what you want to minimize future issues than have to worry about rehoming.

 

[BBradbury]

Fish In Tank Cycling

Ive been fighting a losing battle with ph with my 45 gallon tank and come to the conclusion my water was too hard to do anything much to. Ive successfully lowered it from 8.2 to around 7.6 by swapping RO water for my hard well water. I figure if I add a high ratio of RO water to well water whenever I do a water change I should be fine. But now my tank has been sitting empty for over a month and I am not sure I can stomach waiting another for fishless cycling. So I want to get some fish that can stand the ph fairly well, not tear up my plants, and will do alright with the crayfish I eventually want.
At a local fish shop they have a tank full of tiny fish, I think immiture cloud mountain minnows and danios? They are very cheap so I was wondering if these would be alright and if not what some better options would be.

Sent from my SCH-R960 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Hello WC...

Cycling a tank with the right fish is efficient and doesn't bother the fish provided you're a good water monitor. If you like livebearing fish, then Platys will easily tolerate the less than perfect water condition that come with the nitrogen cycle. The hardiest egglayer would be Danios. Zebras or Rosey Danios are good.

If you check the tank water daily and change out 25 percent when you have a trace of ammonia or nitrite in the water the fish will be fine.

I would add some floating plants to the tank too, to help keep the water somewhat safer. Hornwort is a good one.

B