Adding Multiple / Too Many Fish At Once?

Planning on adding 10 neon tetras, 20 guppies (adult and juvenile), 30 red cherry shrimp at once.

Current tank conditions:
160L / 40 gallon fully cycled
Medium planted tank
Water parameters stable and ideal
100+ RCS molting and breeding happily

Would there be issues with adding these fish at the same time, given their relatively minor bioloads for this big of a tank?

 

I could be wrong but that definitely seems like a a lot of fish at once....I feel like it may crash your cycle or at the very least stress the **** out of the fish...... Maybe do one group at a time?

I could be wrong they are small community fish......

Someone else will weigh in on stocking also...almost seems like too many, 60 fish is a lot for a 40.

Give it 20min you'll have tons of responses hah

 

I could be wrong but that definitely seems like a a lot of fish at once....I feel like it may crash your cycle or at the very least stress the out of the fish...... Maybe do one group at a time?

I could be wrong they are small community fish......

Someone else will weigh in on stocking also...almost seems like too many, 60 fish is a lot for a 40.

Give it 20min you'll have tons of responses hah

Thanks for the response! Just a head's up: RCS are red cherry shrimp, which are tiny and produce very little bioload. In total, there will be 30 fish in there.

 

so add about 5 guppies and 5 rcs at a time, to acclimate them put them in a bowl and float it on the top of your tank in the water and add ~ 1/4 cup of the tank around every 45 min-1 hour 3-4 times then add only the fish no water from the bowls.

Thanks for the response! Just a head's up: RCS are red cherry shrimp, which are tiny and produce very little bioload. In total, there will be 30 fish in there.

They get stressed out and produce a lot of poop so a normally not so poopy fish will poop a lot when stressed out.

 

I wouldn't do it. Your tank is cycled but is probably not ready for all of these fish at once. RCS have a very low bioload and your beneficial bacteria are probably not ready to take on so much more waste. I would add the fish more gradually, to give the bacteria time to catch up. Something like this seems like it would be more appropriate:
Day 1- 50 Shrimp
Day 3- 50 shrimp
Day 6- 5 Neons
Day 9-5 Neons
Day 13- 10 Guppies
Day 18- 10 Guppies
Day 23- 10 guppies
If you don't want to space things out so much, at least add everyone over the course of several days. You could also add some sort of bottled beneficial bacteria such as Seachem's Stability to help expand your bacterial colony.

 

Were you adding ammonia to your cycle? How many PPM and how fast did it clear to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite?

The problem with the few at a time approach is you're totally ignoring quarantine and have a higher risk IMO of introducing an issue with multiple purchases on multiple days, maybe from multiple locations going into the tank in a few weeks.

The point of fishless cycling is to not need to do the one or two fish at a time over months to build up your bio load. The tank has been prepared to accept it all at once, because you've been dosing that amount of ammonia.

If your tank clears 2-3ppm ammonia in under a day, 12 hours even better, it's ready for all of the fish. Plop and drop, don't let any bag water get in your tank.

If the RCS were the only thing cycling your tank, you probably don't have nearly enough beneficial bacteria to take it all at once without daily water changes and probably supplemental bacteria dosing. So quarantine and at least 2 batches if you don't want to monitor once or twice a day.

 

invert your numbers for theguppies and neons. neons have a much lower bioload, so you can have more of them. guppies have a higher potential bioload cuz of their fast reproduction if you have mixed genders.

if you only had male guppies then it would not be much of a concern.

 

I wouldn't do it. Your tank is cycled but is probably not ready for all of these fish at once. RCS have a very low bioload and your beneficial bacteria are probably not ready to take on so much more waste. I would add the fish more gradually, to give the bacteria time to catch up. Something like this seems like it would be more appropriate:
Day 1- 50 Shrimp
Day 3- 50 shrimp
Day 6- 5 Neons
Day 9-5 Neons
Day 13- 10 Guppies
Day 18- 10 Guppies
Day 23- 10 guppies
If you don't want to space things out so much, at least add everyone over the course of several days. You could also add some sort of bottled beneficial bacteria such as Seachem's Stability to help expand your bacterial colony.

This is fantastic advice, thank you! There are already 100 shrimpies in the tank, and 30 new ones available (not in my tank yet).
Using your stocking plan, I suppose this would be the modified version:
Day 1- 30 Shrimp
Day 3- 5 Neons
Day 6- 5 Neons
Day 10- 10 Guppies
Day 15- 10 Guppies
Day 20- 10 Guppies

Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of spacing the stocking over that long, as the opportunity to adopt these fish and critters is a once-off.

What would be the tightest stocking plan without too much risk of stress?

I've read a lot of conflicting reviews vis-a-vis Seachem Stability, with the worst suggesting it hogs available resources and starves existing bacteria. An ammonia spike then occurs when the Seachem bacteria perish due to being terrestrial and not suited for the role, long-term. This view aligns with some FL users here :/

That said, I will definitely take your advice and supplement beneficial bacteria with Tetra Safe Start.

Thanks again!

Were you adding ammonia to your cycle? How many PPM and how fast did it clear to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite?

The problem with the few at a time approach is you're totally ignoring quarantine and have a higher risk IMO of introducing an issue with multiple purchases on multiple days, maybe from multiple locations going into the tank in a few weeks.

The point of fishless cycling is to not need to do the one or two fish at a time over months to build up your bio load. The tank has been prepared to accept it all at once, because you've been dosing that amount of ammonia.

If your tank clears 2-3ppm ammonia in under a day, 12 hours even better, it's ready for all of the fish. Plop and drop, don't let any bag water get in your tank.

If the RCS were the only thing cycling your tank, you probably don't have nearly enough beneficial bacteria to take it all at once without daily water changes and probably supplemental bacteria dosing. So quarantine and at least 2 batches if you don't want to monitor once or twice a day.

Great point about quarantine! When I first got the tank I didn't know about cycling, so I kept about 20 mosquito fish in there with plants and driftwood. This was over a year ago, wherein several generations have been given away for pets or feeders (illegal to put them in the wild here). I evicted the last 40 or so, a few weeks ago, because they're nasty buggers and would have wiped out the RCS. Ammonia was sitting on 0.2ppm before water changes for the shrimp.

Never done the plop and drop before, but there was a very informative video posted recently and I'm keen to try. Thanks again!

 

Great point about quarantine! ...

Never done the plop and drop before, but there was a very informative video posted recently and I'm keen to try. Thanks again!

I just float the bag first. Even if you do some drip acclimatization, still don't let any bag water into your tank, it's dirty.

Skipping Quarantine will bite you eventually, hopefully not with a tank killer... fish cycling a tank is risky in that regard.

With fishless cycles all your fish will likely be in the same Q tank, so I skip it and treat the new tank as Q and put them all in at once and monitor closely.

 

Never had guppy's, but believe 30 is extremely overstocked for a 40. I know someone who is experienced though OnTheFly

 

Never had guppy's, but believe 30 is extremely overstocked for a 40. I know someone who is experienced though OnTheFly

I would stock a little slower than that. The tank is large enough if the filter has a good BB colony. The problem with the plan is you'll have 200 guppies in a couple months. I would start with a smaller number of nicer guppies. They will take you to your desired stocking level soon enough. And you won't have hundreds of feeder fish to get rid of. It happens VERY fast. I purchased two trios of show guppies 20 days ago. The trip across the country was stressful so half the new fry since then were stillborn. I still have over 50 guppies now. I'll have 200 in 60 days. I also have a financial arrangement with a good LFS to provide quality guppies.