Adding all the fish at once

[fish fry]

I'm curious if anyone out there uses the fish-less method to cycle their tanks?
Some of the fish I plan on adding are delicate and should only be added to established tanks. The ones that could handle a traditional cycle tend to be more aggressive and should be added last. So I'm thinking of fishless cycling and then adding everybody at once.
Any thoughts? I have a friend that has done it sucessfully with some aggressive Cichlids, So it should work...right?
Thanks
Tom

 

[mr . salty]

This will definatly NOT work...Adding too many fish at one time will throw the biosystem out of ballance and cause the tank to recycle.You see,your tank will only have enough nitrafying bacteria as is needed to support the load that is in it...every time you add a fish(even one) the bio system needs to adjust by producing more bacteria.Add One fish at a time,and this adjustment is done quickly,with little or no affect on your readings...If you add too many at once,the system needs to produce alot of bacteria,thus another ammo/nitrite spike(RECYCLE)...

 

[fish fry]

I'm not sure if I follow as to why it won't work if it is done the following way:
If the tank has LR/LS it should have enough nitrafying bacteria to handle a small amount of ammonia/nitrite. If I slowly add ammonia and increase the amount added over a couple of weeks they tank should be able to adapt. The bacteria will have enough time to reproduce to handle the increase in bio-load.
Works in fresh water and that's without LR/LS, just some gravel from an established tank.
Thanks
Tom

 

[nasukan]

Man you dont seem to understand what Mr. Salty(generally acknowledged as being "the man" on this board) is trying to tell you. The bacteria will not be suffecient because it multiplies off of ammonia, nitrites, nitrates etc.... Those are their food source. There is not enough "food" to support adding all those fish at one time. The sand and rock only harbor the bacteria, and let it incubate. There will only be enough bacteria to support the bio-load, so extra bio-load would not be taken care of. That would be when your tank starts to re-cycle.

 

[fish fry]

Well that's why I'm asking. I've seen it with freshwater where more and more ammonia was added over the course of a couple of weeks. The the person then changed the source of ammonia. Switching from pure ammonia, to a fish bio-load. When this was done there was no spike in ammonia or nitrite.
Which really just leads me back to the reason for inquiring about it in the 1st place. It seems that a lot of aggressive fish that should be added last are also the ones that would best be able to survive in a new tank and some of the more delicate fish that should only be added into established tanks would be bullied if they were added last.
In fresh - Whenever I've added fish to a tank already inhabitied by an aggressive fish I've had to rearrange all the aquascaping to diminish any aggressive behavior. I'm just looking to avoid having to redocrate the tank. Plus it would cut down on the shipping costs of the fish if I mail ordered them.
Thanks
Tom

 

[jacrmill]

i understand your plan, but i dont know if it would work. what you are wanting to do is to add ammonia every day, and continually raise the amount of ammonia in the tank until you are adding the amount of ammonia your fish would be producing. that would help you to grow the bacteria. then stop adding ammonia and put in the fish. but the problem is how much ammonia is equal to 1 fish? i sure dont know, maybe someone else does? just so you know freshwater fish, in my experience at least, are much less sensitive to ammonia. you can really get away without cycling a freshwater tank if you dont add anything but tetras and things like that. this is not true with salt.

 

[von_rahvin]

i was doing some research in bio systems (call it high school science fair) and i wasadding ammonia to a lr ls setup to simulate fish being in there. only once prob i added too much .. you need allmost no ammonia or you will spike off the charts. think about how much you excrete compared to your body size. then think about the size of the fish you are getting. just an idea. personally, i would just follow mr. Salty's advise, these guys know just about everything there is to know about this stuff

 

[fish fry]

Well it was worth a shot, that's why I asked. I too wasn't sure how much ammonia to add either.
Thanks
Tom