paulus

Just a quick question. I understand the practice of stocking a new tank a few fish at a time, but what do you do when it comes to fish that like to be in small schools. Do you add say, all 6 at once, or do you still stick to adding a couple a week?

Jmarcus

When I started my tank I asked myself the same Question. But I added six tiger barbs over the next few weeks I lost three fish I was sad. But I waited a few more weeks and got brave enough to get three more, after a day maybe less they were all buddys and swam good together. I still have those six fish, except for an ocassonel fight, they still love one another.

Isabella

Well, it depends on how large the tank is. If the tank is, say, 75 or 90 gallons, I don't think it would be dangerous to add to it 6 small schooling fish (like neon tetras, for example). But if the tank is only 10 - 20 gallons, adding 6 even small fish at once may be dangerous. How large is your tank? If it's anywhere between 10 - 30 gallons, I'd put only half of the school at first, then - maybe a week later - put the other half of the school in. If the tank is 10 gallons, I wouldn't put in there more than 2 - 3 small fish at first.

If you add too many fish, even though the tank is cycled, ammonia and/or nitrite can suddenly go up. It is for this reason why it's important to stock only few fish at a time. It is also very important to acclimatize properly any new fish that you get. Please remember to acclimatize. Here is some information on how to do this: http://www.fishlore.com/acclimating-tropicalfish.htm.

dan da man3042

add al of them a once . it will create more stress otherwise
i bought 2 clown loaches once and put them in new water and they got a disease cald white spot or ick and all the fish we bought after thast died because they got it aswell>cauz the treatment didnt work.
bbuy a group of them and keep replacing them when they die or all of them will die. i hav experienced this
dan

Isabella

Dan Da Man ... it's actually not very safe to put them all at once into a new tank, even though it is cycled. Your fish got sick and died probably because you either did not acclimatize them properly, or you got an ammonia and/or nitrite spike when you put your fish into your tank. Or, if your tank wasn't finished cycling - this is why they might have gotten sick and died as well. And it DOES matter a lot whether the tank you're stocking is large or small, and how many fish you're adding to that large or small tank - as I have explained above.

P.S. Another possibility is that you could have bought sick fish already, however I suspect it was rather one of the above situations.