When should I add fish

[FishyGirl]

Hi! I am new to fish keeping and new some advice, my tank has been set up for 3 days now, I am getting live plants today, and I am using a canister filter, my tank is a 75 gallon and I am having so trouble figuring out when to put fish in, some websites say 4-6 and others say 1-2. Just curious on what ya’all would do. Thanks! 

[Lennie]

First you need to have a test kit that tests for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. 

Then, you need to have an ammonia source in your tank. It can be a constantly added a  small pinch of fish food, ammonia for aquariums, etc. You should start reading ammonia with your test kit. Without intoducing an ammonia source, you basically can't start cycling.

Then you need to see ammonia clearing up and reading nitrite for a period.

Then you need to nitrite readings to disappear and read nitrate only. 

When your tank is cycled, you need to stock very slowly.

 

It changes for everyone and every tank when it actually cycles. So nobody can tell you an exact time of adding fish. Only test kits can tell. But usually, it takes at least around 6-7 weeks or more if you add no bottled bacteria or seeded filter. If you can find a cycled media to add your canister filter, it may speed up the process a lot.

Currently, I added a pinch of fish food, added stability and filter gunk of 2 established filters in a tub with new sponges I'm cycling. It took about 2 weeks to cycle them.

Live aquarium plants are a good assistant. They may help you to introduce some bb as they live on surfaces. Not much tho. Also I'm not sure if bb survives dippings. @Guppysnail do you have any idea if bb survives plant dips?

 Plants also helps to combat algae growth while cycling the tank. 

[Pepere]

On 6/19/2023 at 1:51 PM, Lennie said:

But usually, it takes at least around 6-7 weeks or more if you add no bottled bacteria

My experience using multiple brands and bottles of bacteria in a bottle took about that amount of time…

 

With filter squeezings I have cycled nicely in 2 weeks.

[TheMosster]

On 6/19/2023 at 1:51 PM, Lennie said:

Live aquarium plants are a good assistant. They may help you to introduce some bb as they live on surfaces. Not much tho. Also I'm not sure if bb survives dippings. @Guppysnail do you have any idea if bb survives plant dips?

one of the primary consumers of oxygen in our aquariums is BB. They certainly need oxygen to do their converty thingy, and everyone talks about in filter arguments how you can lose bacteria from suffocation in external filters in power outages, so a process such as RR, that nothing that needs oxygen can survive, would probably kill your BB.

[Lennie]

On 6/19/2023 at 9:12 PM, TheMosster said:

one of the primary consumers of oxygen in our aquariums is BB. They certainly need oxygen to do their converty thingy, and everyone talks about in filter arguments how you can lose bacteria from suffocation in external filters in power outages, so a process such as RR, that nothing that needs oxygen can survive, would probably kill your BB.

but what about potential spores, or potentially them going dormant 🤔

[TheMosster]

On 6/19/2023 at 2:32 PM, Lennie said:

but what about potential spores

no clue what this means.

On 6/19/2023 at 2:32 PM, Lennie said:

potentially them going dormant 🤔

no idea, as you could see by my answer, i was winging it. Im not a micro-biologist.