Cycling dilemma

[nikismithwin]

So I have a 20g that had been setup for a couple months. Had a couple guppies in it, 1 bee shrimp, a mystery snail, marimo ball, driftwood, bubbler and a potted lucky bamboo. I wanted to make a home for my pair of rams, so I moved everyone to an established 10g, broke down my tank, added play sand, put back the driftwood, heater, and bamboo. I put a new bag in my filter and left out the carbon. That was Saturday.

My son adopted a 40g tank w/fish. It houses an albino Chinese algae eater, albino rainbow shark, a tiger barb, 2 green barbs, and a neon barb. Nobody in that tank gets along. One of the green barbs was so aggressive everyone else was hiding, swimming vertically, super stressed. He would engage in mouth to mouth combat with the others till I couldn't watch it anymore and yesterday I scooped him up and threw him in the uncycled 20g I had just set up. A friend has extra tanks and offered to take all the fish my son adopted and separate them.

Here's my dilemma... I had originally planned on cycling the tank by feeding it flake food, not fish. But now that I've put a fish in it if I take it out will the cycle starve? Should I put the guppies in to replace the barb? I've been checking the water daily and haven't seen any ammonia yet but its only been 3 days so maybe it hasn't had time to build up...

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[Caliban07]

So I have a 20g that had been setup for a couple months. Had a couple guppies in it, 1 bee shrimp, a mystery snail, marimo ball, driftwood, bubbler and a potted lucky bamboo. I wanted to make a home for my pair of rams, so I moved everyone to an established 10g, broke down my tank, added play sand, put back the driftwood, heater, and bamboo. I put a new bag in my filter and left out the carbon. That was Saturday.

My son adopted a 40g tank w/fish. It houses an albino Chinese algae eater, albino rainbow shark, a tiger barb, 2 green barbs, and a neon barb. Nobody in that tank gets along. One of the green barbs was so aggressive everyone else was hiding, swimming vertically, super stressed. He would engage in mouth to mouth combat with the others till I couldn't watch it anymore and yesterday I scooped him up and threw him in the uncycled 20g I had just set up. A friend has extra tanks and offered to take all the fish my son adopted and separate them.

Here's my dilemma... I had originally planned on cycling the tank by feeding it flake food, not fish. But now that I've put a fish in it if I take it out will the cycle starve? Should I put the guppies in to replace the barb? I've been checking the water daily and haven't seen any ammonia yet but its only been 3 days so maybe it hasn't had time to build up...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

The bacteria can live months without a source of ammonia according to studies so I wouldn't worry about that.

Also one barb in a 20g isn't going to harm the fish if you feed sensibly and do water changes. But you won't grow much of a bacteria colony.

Try a prawn in a mesh bag and chuck it over the side and leave it. Much better than fish food which gets very messy. The prawn may begin to smell though.

 

[BBradbury]

Hello nik...

Cycling a tank with fish requires 3 to 4 reasonably sized and hardy fish for every 10 gallons of water. Guppies, Platys, Rosy Barbs, White Clouds, Rasboras, etc. So, a 20 G would need around 8 fish. Once the fish are in along with some floating plants like Hornwort, it takes a couple of days for the ammonia from the fish waste to build up to measurable levels. The reason is, there's quite a bit of water to dilute the ammonia.

So, you get out your reliable water testing kit and test daily for traces of ammonia and eventually nitrite. If you have a positive test for either, you change out 25 percent of the tank water and replace it with pure treated tap water. Just test daily and change the water when needed. Don't get creative and change the routine or you'll likely run into trouble. In a month or so, the tank will be cycled. From that point on, you change half the water every week to maintain safe water conditions for the fish and plants.

Pretty easy.

B