Quote:
Originally Posted by Silock
How was I supposed to know I was jumping the gun on the cycle, though? The water parameters indicated that it wasn't a problem to add fish at that time, especially these small tetras. You are right, though, that it apparently was too much too soon. I'm just not sure how I was supposed to know differently.
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You really can't
know. A lot of it has to do with your filtration and what kind of surfaces you have for the anaerobic bacteria and other beneficial critters to multiply.
I did it when I set up my first freshwater setup, did it again when I set up my saltwater tank (and that !@#$er has 150 gallons of overall water when you include the water in the sump; 4 fish was enough to blast it).
Until you have a very very established system, you probably don't want to add more than a couple fish at a time. And even then, sometimes the only way to plow through a cycle is to...well, plow through the cycle.
Tetras are cheap, so there a viable solution, but they're also small so they probably don't really increase your ability to handle bio-load very well. Ultimately the mollies are probably the best bet. Unlike tetras, which are very susceptible to bad water, Mollies are pretty much tanks and will probably survive the spike. They'll also make enough waste to really finish the cycle, as opposed to the Tetras that are more likely to simply fall victim to it.