How many fish at a time

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micaiah12

Aquarium Advice Freak
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Sep 18, 2011
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Well maybe you have read my recent post on what fish I should get for my 50 gallon. I have decided to get tiger barbs. Maybe a school of different barbs. The size of the school will be around 12 fish. Will it it be fine to get the 12 fish at once and add them in? Or do I have to get three at a time? The reason I'm asking this is that our petsmart is about an hour away. We only go there like once a month.
 
Depends on how you cycle the tank, have you read up on cycling? If you do the fish out method you could probably add them all at once. If you do the fish in method I'm not sure. It would all depend on how quickly the ammonia built up in the tank. I'm assuming you know about cycling so the fish out method you're suppose to be able to add a larger amount of fish in at once since you have such a large number of BB.
 
It's a populated tank already. Been cycled for almost a year. Ok I'll add them at once. Thanks.
 
Hmm if it's cycled and up for a year, I'd only add a few at a time. Usually when you first cycle a tank using the fish out method you put 4 ppm ammonia in, that builds up a large amount of BB. Now an up and running tank any extra BB you have would of died off and the tank can only handle the bioload you have now.
 
Could I dose my ammonia until I get them? That way I can build up some more BB?
 
I'm not sure with having fish in there, it would be poisonous to them, I'll let others comment though to be sure.
 
micaiah12 said:
Could I dose my ammonia until I get them? That way I can build up some more BB?

Don't dose ammo while fish are in it. If your waiting for fish you can dose to keep your bb alive tho.
 
If your going to add 12 barbs a relatively small fish I would add six barbs at a time wait a week or two, test your water, and add six more. They don't produce that much waste and you shouldn't see a spike with ammo or nitrite. I've done it this way with tetras and similar size fish with no problems or losses.
 
Are you sure the fish you already have are compatible with barbs? They are vicious little fishies....... :hide:
 
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