Bottled bacteria

[fishlover0815]

The bottled bacteria- do I put whole bottle or follow instructions? Cause the bottled bacteria says you can instantly put fish in(which I don't believe) and says first day put this much, and add in fish, put this much on day 2... But if I don't add fish, does it make more sense to put whole bottle in instead and have more bacteria in the tank instead?

 

[lmforbis]

It will kick start the cycle but you can't add fish until the cycle is finished. This can take a couple weeks to a couple months. You will need to feed the tank as if it has fish while the tank is cycling. This feeds the bacteria. You will need to test the annonia until it peaks then falls to zero. You will also need to do this with nitrite. When the cycle is done annonia and nitrite will have gone up then dropped to zero and nitrate will be high.

 

[fishlover0815]

It will kick start the cycle but you can't add fish until the cycle is finished. This can take a couple weeks to a couple months. You will need to feed the tank as if it has fish while the tank is cycling. This feeds the bacteria. You will need to test the annonia until it peaks then falls to zero. You will also need to do this with nitrite. When the cycle is done annonia and nitrite will have gone up then dropped to zero and nitrate will be high.

But do I add the whole bottle or follow the instructions?

 

[lmforbis]

follow the instructions

 

[fishlover0815]

follow the instructions

Whoops I read your reply too late, I put the whole bottle in... But it's basically half a bottle because I used some b4

 

[geridoc]

Whoops I read your reply too late, I put the whole bottle in... But it's basically half a bottle because I used some b4

It doesn't really matter. If you added too many bacteria some will die or go inactive until there is sufficient nutrient present to feed them. Bacterial loads have a wonderful ability to grow just enough to do the job.