# Adding Fish and Ammonia Spikes



## clhinds78 (Jul 27, 2012)

Today I was at one of the large-chain fish stores to get fish for my nephew's 20L and the girl there told that I could only add three to four fish to a new tank because of ammonia spikes. I told her the tank was fully cycled but she insisted so we only got four. My nephew was a bit disappointed, but it seemed as tho she wasn't going to sell me more than four.

I've always thought it was best to add all the new fish at once and that ammonia spikes could be avoided with frequent water changes. When I setup my 75g I added all the fish at once and everything seems ok.

Was the saleswoman right or am I right? Would it have been ok to add more fish or are ammonia spikes more of an issue with smaller tanks?


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

> Was the saleswoman right or am I right?


Depends



> I told her the tank was fully cycled


'Fully cycled' needs a bit of clarification. If fully fishless cycled to 1-2ppm using ammonia, then fully stock, yes. If fully cycling a 75g with a few danios, different story. But generally the old 'stock a few at a time' advice goes back to the days when the only way tanks were cycled was with fish. Another scenario is a tank has been set up and fully established for months, but now you're restocking. If that's the case, then fully stock and monitor for ammonia/nitrite just in case, but IME shouldn't see spikes.



> When I setup my 75g I added all the fish at once and everything seems ok.


How did you cycle the tank? Hopefully 'everything seems ok' means test results were good, 0 ammonia and nitrite.



> are ammonia spikes more of an issue with smaller tanks?


No, it's about stocking levels and bioload, not tank size.


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## Katmadi (Jul 12, 2012)

Prov356 is right. It depends is the correct answer haha.

I will share some testing I did. I recently set up a new 75. I did my first fishless cycle and then added 8 small Acie I bought at a chain mart. When I put the Acie in I had a small rise to about .25 PPM on both ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours. The next day all was zero. All zeros for a week. Yesterday I added 5 small cuckoo catfish I bought online. Today I tested and I have a small hit on ammonia about .5 no nitrite.

When I ordered the 5 cuckoos I concidered ordering some more Mumbuna about 8 pseudotropheus saulosi. I was concerned about more than doubling my bio load by adding 13 fish when I only have 8 in the tank. So I only ordered the cuckoos. After todays readings I am glad I did not order all the fish. I will wait untill I get zero readings for a few days again and then order the 8 Mbuna.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

Katmadi said:


> Prov356 is right. It depends is the correct answer haha.
> 
> I will share some testing I did. I recently set up a new 75. I did my first fishless cycle and then added 8 small Acie I bought at a chain mart. When I put the Acie in I had a small rise to about .25 PPM on both ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours. The next day all was zero. All zeros for a week. Yesterday I added 5 small cuckoo catfish I bought online. Today I tested and I have a small hit on ammonia about .5 no nitrite.
> 
> When I ordered the 5 cuckoos I concidered ordering some more Mumbuna about 8 pseudotropheus saulosi. I was concerned about more than doubling my bio load by adding 13 fish when I only have 8 in the tank. So I only ordered the cuckoos. After todays readings I am glad I did not order all the fish. I will wait untill I get zero readings for a few days again and then order the 8 Mbuna.


This should never happen with fishless cycling. This is not the norm at all. I've never seen spikes nor heard of this before from anyone else. I'd be interested in more detail on how you 'fishless' cycled. How much ammonia did you use, meaning what level in ppm did you bring the ammonia up to? How did you proceed to dose from there?


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## clhinds78 (Jul 27, 2012)

The 20L was a newly setup tank. I cycled it with old media and rocks from my established tank. AFter a week ammonia levels were 0ppm and after two they were still 0. I figured it was ok to add fish at this point. I will check the levels again today and see what happened after adding the fish.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

clhinds78 said:


> The 20L was a newly setup tank. I cycled it with old media and rocks from my established tank. AFter a week ammonia levels were 0ppm and after two they were still 0. I figured it was ok to add fish at this point. I will check the levels again today and see what happened after adding the fish.


It'd be more correct to say you 'seeded' it with old media and rocks, not cycled. In that scenario, I'd side with the shop keeper. If you wanted to stock all at once, then the thing to do would have been to add an ammonia dose using clear ammonia to 1-2ppm and test after 24 hours. Once ammonia read 0, you'd dose and keep testing every 2-3 days until nitrite also read 0. Then the tank would have been 'cycled'. Until the bacteria build enough to handle the ammonia load, whatever that might be, the tank isn't cycled. Sounds like semantics, but there really is an important distinction between seeded and cycled. Sometimes seeding results in fully cycled, sometimes not. Depends on many things.


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## clhinds78 (Jul 27, 2012)

prov356 said:


> clhinds78 said:
> 
> 
> > The 20L was a newly setup tank. I cycled it with old media and rocks from my established tank. AFter a week ammonia levels were 0ppm and after two they were still 0. I figured it was ok to add fish at this point. I will check the levels again today and see what happened after adding the fish.
> ...


Nitrites were at 0 as well as of yesterday.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

That's good, but you should stock slowly as suggested.


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## clhinds78 (Jul 27, 2012)

prov356 said:


> That's good, but you should stock slowly as suggested.


I will, especially since there's no decent fish stores in my town and we have to travel a half hr to get to one.


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## Katmadi (Jul 12, 2012)

prov356 said:


> This should never happen with fishless cycling. This is not the norm at all. I've never seen spikes nor heard of this before from anyone else. I'd be interested in more detail on how you 'fishless' cycled. How much ammonia did you use, meaning what level in ppm did you bring the ammonia up to? How did you proceed to dose from there?


Well I did have issues with this my first fishless cycle. My first dose of ammonia was a bit high. It was 6 pmm. I left it for two weeks and the ammonia stalled at about .5 with Nitrite off the scale. I waited about three more days with no change so I did a 50 percent water change and checked the next day and ammonia was about .25 and nitrite was zero. I dosed to 1 ~PPM. In a week it dropped to .25 but never would go to zero. I never got a nitrite reading. I dosed again 1 PPM ammonia and got to where ammonia would clear to .25 in 24 hours but I never got a zero reading even if I waited 5 days. I thought it was false positive with the Kit. Still no nitrite.

At this point almost a month into the cycling, I must admit I got impatient. I went and bought a bottle of Tetra safe start and put it in after dosing to 1 PPM again. In 12 hours I had a small .25 hit on both ammonia and nitrite both zero in 24 hours. At this point I did a 80 percent water change and added the small acie the next day.

I just checked again and both ammonia and nitrite are zero. This is six hours after I had the .5ish ammonia reading 24 hours after adding the Cuckoo catfish.


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## fusion (Jun 21, 2012)

Katmadi said:


> prov356 said:
> 
> 
> > This should never happen with fishless cycling. This is not the norm at all. I've never seen spikes nor heard of this before from anyone else. I'd be interested in more detail on how you 'fishless' cycled. How much ammonia did you use, meaning what level in ppm did you bring the ammonia up to? How did you proceed to dose from there?
> ...


1 month is a bit soon to be getting impatient :roll: mine took almost 6 weeks to complete the cycle


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## mtbloco (May 11, 2012)

I'm trying my first fish less cycle on my 120g. I used some bacteria containing sub straight (Eco-complete) a bottle of additional bacteria seeding, and some filter bio rings from an established tank.

It took four days until my first does got very close to zero. Does again ~1 ppm, after 24 hours it's down to .25. Not sign of nitrite , nitrate just starting to show color. Hope to see at least a hint of nitrite before I go one, but will wait to get the zero ammonia from 1ppm in 24 hours a few times before I order fish. Hope that's less than 6 weeks.


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## Storiwyr (Apr 24, 2012)

prov356 said:


> If you wanted to stock all at once, then the thing to do would have been to add an ammonia dose using clear ammonia to 1-2ppm and test after 24 hours. Once ammonia read 0, you'd dose and keep testing every 2-3 days until nitrite also read 0. Then the tank would have been 'cycled'.


I tend to get lost in details, so I have a question ...

This is how I think of the process of fishless cycling, and getting to fully cycled:

Step 1: Set up the tank with substrate, filters, heater, water, decorations, whatever.

Step 2: Seed the tank somehow. (old filter, old substrate, Dr. Tim's One & Only, or some combination)

Step 3: Dose ammonia to 2 ppm, using a liquid test kit to verify the levels in the tank are around 2ppm

Step 4: Check ammonia and nitrite daily

Step 5: Redose ammonia to 2 ppm every time it hits 0, using liquid test kit to verify

Step 6: When ammonia and nitrite both hit zero within 24 hours after dosing the tank with ammonia, and there are nitrates present, the tank is fully cycled.

Step 7: Do a water change, and stock with fish

Is this accurate?


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## mtbloco (May 11, 2012)

That's how I understand the protocol.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

> Is this accurate?


Yes. The only change I'd suggest is specifying a range of 1-2ppm of ammonia. And only add more ammonia every 2-3 days, not daily, once it tests 0 after 24 hours. If you push too much ammonia, it'll just drive up nitrites and eventually nitrates. Both of those points can slow the entire process down a bit. Otherwise, nice summary. :thumb:


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## Storiwyr (Apr 24, 2012)

prov356 said:


> Yes. The only change I'd suggest is specifying a range of 1-2ppm of ammonia. And only add more ammonia every 2-3 days, not daily, once it tests 0 after 24 hours. If you push too much ammonia, it'll just drive up nitrites and eventually nitrates. Both of those points can slow the entire process down a bit. Otherwise, nice summary. :thumb:


Phew! Thanks! I'm glad I finally get it!


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