Quarantine and Stocking Questions

[hjsvt]

I am just starting a 29g fishless cycle but with seed material from a failed 10g goldfish tank. This morning I got Nitrite and Nitrate readings so I'm excited!! My master test kit will be here today so I'll get a better handle on what's actually happening.

So I've been thinking about stocking this morning. With the help of AqaAdvisor, I've come up the tentative plan below. So everything I have read about adding fish highly recommends a quarantine tank. I'm assuming this is more for when you have an established tank and you want to add to it. Or should I set my 10 gallon back up and start cycling it now for a quarantine tank? So another question I have, given my tentative stocking plan, what should I start with and when should I add more? And then I'm assuming before I add I'll want to have that 10g set up and cycled as a quarantine tank. But some of these might not do well in 10g but it's the only other tank I have. So stress in small quarantine tank or risk infecting my established tank? Thanks for the help!

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[FWFishTanks]

The stock is on the heavy side, but with weekly water changes of 50%, it is certainly doable.

 

[doctordamen]

If you are doing a fish less cycle by adding ammonia.. as soon as you cycle thru 4ppm in 24hrs.. Check your nitrates and if all is good you can add your whole stock of fish..
If you have an established filter and only add a couple fish, you will lose a bunch of bacteria you spent building up

If you have just put an old filter on a new tank without adding ammonia or fish.. There will be no food source for your good bacteria to eat and they will die out.


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[ThangaMean]

Do the BBs die out right away without food?! Or how long do they survive in a bare tank?

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[doctordamen]

I don't know for sure... I would "guess" after a few days they would slowly start to die off... And after a week or two I think you would have lost all your BBs..

Hopefully someone else on here can help out with that..


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[hjsvt]

Thank you doctordamen! I really appreciate you taking the time to actually answer my questions! Your answers make perfect sense! Thank you!
FWFishTanks I appreciate you thoughts on over populating my tank. So can I not trust what AqAdviser is saying? I am running two filters and at that proposed stocking level AqAdviser my filtering is at 126%, recommended weekly water change is 26% and tank capacity is 93%. Can I not trust these numbers? I realize they are a guideline and nothing compares to experience. Do you have a recommendation other than the 50% weekly water change?

Thanks for the input!

 

[SushiRoll]

Your stocking and filtration look good so maybe 20% to 25% weekly water changes? Correct me if I'm wrong though.


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[doctordamen]

Just keep an eye on your nitrate levels... If you go from say... 5ppm - 40ppm in a week then you know you need to keep on top of your water changes at least 50% pwc per week... If you only go from 5ppm to 10 ppm( which i highly doubt since you have a good amount of fish for tank size) you would be able to ease off to 20% pwc each week.


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[hjsvt]

Just keep an eye on your nitrate levels... If you go from say... 5ppm - 40ppm in a week then you know you need to keep on top of your water changes at least 50% pwc per week... If you only go from 5ppm to 10 ppm( which i highly doubt since you have a good amount of fish for tank size) you would be able to ease off to 20% pwc each week.

Thanks again doctordamen! Great advice! I will definitely keep a very close eye on the nitrate. Is once a day testing enough for should I test twice a day the first couple of days just to get an idea of how things are changing?

I'm going to call my lfs this morning and see what they carry and prices and go from there. The store is an hour from me so it's hard to just go visit. I think I'm definitely on the downhill side of my cycle but I have more testing to do and still plenty of time to make changes to the tentative plan. Thanks for all the help!