Fishless Cycle Complete

[rlstoll]

Hey everyone. I am excited to say that my tank has finally finished its cycle. 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and off the charts nitrates. I know it's now time for a huge water change. And then I can put fish in. My stocking plan is as follows.

Stocking plan:
~8 neon tetras
~8 GloFish
1 dwarf gourami
2 cockatoo cichlids

Would anyone have any stocking suggestions? Also I have read many things about feeding but what would you feed this tank and how often? I have a question about dechlorinator. When you do a water change you must dechlorinate it, I have both tap water dechlorinator by top fin and ammo lock by API. Which should I use and can you over dose it?

Thanks for all the help in advance!!

 

[librarygirl]

Congrats on your cycle! Read up on "drip acclimation;" it's the best way to acclimate fish to a new tank.

I think your stock looks ok; the cichlids should mostly stay along the bottom so even if they breed and become aggressive the other fish shouldn't be in too much danger (although it's hard to say; neons and glofish are small lol), especially if there is enough decor/plants to break up sight lines. I'll let others comment to say for sure. There's a slight temp inconsistency as most of the fish would do better in upper 70's and the glofish might prefer water a bit cooler but they should be fine.

I feed once per day. Fish like variety like people do. A good staple would be rotating flakes with a good quality pellet like New Life Spectrum or Hikari community pellets. The Cichlids should be ok with those too or you can try a Cichlid pellet for them (they'll want to eat from the bottom though; soaking the pellets in some tank water helps them sink). Maybe once a week or so my fish like a treat of frozen food: shrimp, cyclops, daphnia, bloodworms. There are freeze-dried varieties of most of these too but there have been some debates about freeze-dried foods causing bloat in some fish; soaking them in some tank water before feeding can probably help with this but I still prefer feeding frozen when possible.

No need of the ammo lock; just the dechlorinator is good. Read the dosing on the bottle. You can overdose technically but you'd need a lot to do so, so don't worry too much about it. You can change water in one of two ways:
--remove water (50% weekly is good practice) then fill up buckets and add enough dechlorinator to each bucket prior to putting it into the tank OR
--remove the water and then add the amount of dechlorinator for the whole volume of the tank (not just the water you are replacing) and then refill. Getting an automatic water changer like the Aqueon will help with water changes as you won't need to lug buckets around. Once you run out of the API stuff, get some Seachem Prime. It's concentrated so you'll use less.

Good luck and enjoy your fish!

 

[rlstoll]

Thanks for the help. I think I am most concerned with keeping the bio filter healthy and making sure my water changes are done correctly to prevent death and stress on my fish. I have city water so that worries me.

 

[librarygirl]

Just use dechlorinator and try to roughly temp match the new water with the tank water (feeling both with your hand is usually close enough) and it should be fine. Have you tested your tap for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? If not do so, just to see what you're starting with and if the tap has any concentrations of any of those. As for the biofilter, if you fishless cycled with ammonia it's as strong as it's ever going to be. Just don't touch the filter for a couple of months, then you can start swishing media in old tank water once a month during water changes to keep it clean of debris and gunk buildup. Sometimes things happen, but take that as it comes, if it does. Try to enjoy it in the meantime. We're here to help too if you need it.