Can I Add The Rest Of My Stocking List?

Yesterday my aquarium cycle finished. I did a 75% water change to get nitrate down to 10 PPM and I added 3 platies to the tank a few hours later. I’m wondering if I can go ahead and add the rest of my stocking list (3 more platies).

It’s a 20 gallon long and it cycled 2 ppm of ammonia into nitrates. Can my tank handle 6 platies after the cycle finished yesterday?

 

Since it cycled 2ppm of ammonia to nitrates within a day, yes you absolutely can add it all at once.

 

Since it cycled 2ppm of ammonia to nitrates within a day, yes you absolutely can add it all at once.

I get so many mixes answers when I research about this. Plus the answers change depending on what’s being stocked.

 

I get so many mixes answers when I research about this. Plus the answers change depending on what’s being stocked.

It is actually pretty stock-agnostic. We've done tests and found that even for a very highly stocked tank with heavy feedings, it is rare for there to be more than 1ppm ammonia produced a day, let alone 2ppm. 2ppm is for REALLY heavy feedings (also in relation to tank size). So for example, a betta in a 2 gal would produce a five times higher concentration of ammonia than in a 10gal tank, because obviously the amount of ammonia produced would be the same, but all that is concentrated in a 2 gal rather than a 10 gal.

But yeah otherwise, except for like a few exceptions, it is always the case that a tank can be fully stocked all at once when it can oxidize 2ppm ammonia to nitrate a day.

 

For peace of mind you can test the water parameters every few days for a week or two after adding your fish, but I aggree with the above advice.