Adding Fish?

[Leader-Of-The-Fish]

Hello everybody. I'm new to this site and busy cycling my 10 gallon tank. I will stock it with 5 Flame Tetras, 2 Mystery Snails, 1 Ghost Shrimp, and one Platy. Do you have any ideas what type of platy will look good with my Flame tetras?

Here is the update on the cycle. First of all im doing it fishless. This morning I checked the water after dosing back to 3ppm of ammonia for the first time last night. These are my results. Ammonia .50-1ppm/ Nitrites 5+ppm/ pH 7.6/ Nitrates 5ppm/. Everything seems to be going well. My Nitrites seem to "eat" 2ppm of ammonia every 22 hours. Tomorrow when I test I expect it to be back down to 0ppm.

Here is my question. Should I add the 5 Flame Tetras first, or should I add the platy and than the Flame tetras a few days later? Do you think I should just add all of them at once? My tank can defiantly handle the full bio-load because of the large amounts of ammonia it is currently converting. I think I'll add the one ghost shrimp with whatever fish I'm going to add last if I do add them at different times

Here is a picture of my tank

Thanks for reading.

 

[Galligak]

Hello and welcom Leader-Of-The-Fish! I love your tank set up, the dirftwood piece looks amazing, have you ever thought of a planted tank? I would add the ghost shrimp and the flame tetras first. You could up the number of ghost shrimp to around 6-10 of them because they have little to no bio load. Do you want to keep with the orange-red look or do you want a different color? If you want to keep with the orange-red look go with a sunset platy, or if you want different try a mickey mouse platy. I would add in the tetras and ghost shrimp, wait a week or so then add the platy. You can add the snail whenever.

 

[bruinsbro1997]

to AA!

I have to agree with AquaKai. You can't really add all those fish at once, but you can add the flame tetras first because they have a smaller bioload along with the shrimp. Then after a week and a few PWC you can add your platy. If you want to keep the vibrant color them going you can try sunset platies or maybe orange ones, or if you want a completely different color you can try mickey mouse or emerald platies.

 

[Leader-Of-The-Fish]

Thank you so much for both of your guy's ( or lady's) help.

I'm going to go with what both of you said and add the Flame tetras and ghost shrimp first. I'm also going to add the two mystery snails because I already have them ( Had them since October of last year) in a 1.5 gallon tank. I'll than wait a week and add a mickey mouse platy!

Thanks, the driftwood center price is from Petsmart for only 15.00 USD dollars. I also though about a planted tank but decided against it because of the cost. I think I may get a live floating plant though for shade and looks.

Thank you for your help it's really appreciated.

 

[eco23]

I disagree. One of the main purposes of doing a fishless cycle is to have the ability to stock your tank all at once. As long as you have peaceful community fish, I have no qualms with stocking the tank heavily initially. Otherwise cycling at 3-4ppm of ammonia would be useless...it's designed to develop a massive bio-filter ready to handle what you throw at it.

 

[Leader-Of-The-Fish]

Well the reason I was wondering about this was because if I added the Flame Tetras first they could have declared their territory and if I added the Platy later it might get bullied to death. Plus 1 week is not that long to wait.

 

[jetajockey]

I wouldn't worry about it too much with these kinds of fish.

 

[eco23]

From what I understand Flame Tetras are peaceful schooling fish. You're obviously welcome to stock as you please, and there's nothing wrong with doing it slowly...but if the fish are peaceful it kind of defeats the purpose of cycling at such a high ppm. The bacteria will adjust to the bio-load, and yes a week isn't long...but how long it takes before bacteria starts dying off is debatable. Personally I'd add them without blinking an eye...I'm sure your bio-filter won't

 

[Galligak]

Honestly you can forget my suggestion on the adding fish thing, because Eco is proabably the most informing person on here with all things cycling and bioload.

 

[Leader-Of-The-Fish]

Good point. I totally forgot the fact that Flame Tetras are peaceful fish. Thanks for your help. I think I'll add them all at once. Thanks for all of your help.

Its really appreciated. I was apart of fishforums.net and they took days to respond!