Silent Cycle with Safestart Stocking Help

So I've just about got two of my shrimp tanks set up. I'm just waiting on getting all the plants this weekend. So, now for the cycling question. (I'm not a beginner and I'm not sure if this is a beginner question, but I don't know fish well. I'm a shrimp guy. So if this needs moved somewhere else, that's fine.)

I'm doing something different than the norm (for the sake of experimentation and the idea of working on a heavily planted tank while cycling). I'm doing a silent cycle with tetra safestart plus. Basically, I'll be doing the cycle with fish and TSS+ in a very heavily planted tank. The tank will consist of a lot of moneywort, java fern, java moss, marimo, and anubias (a lot of each, especially the fern). May later add some other fast growing stem plants and a crypt or two for appearance.

My question is how many fish per tank for this cycle? I'm planning on getting platies to do this. These fish will be kept later in my cull tank, so they are not just for cycling. I plan on keeping them. For the cycle, I was planning on doing either two or three platies per tank. Which number would be better?

Thanks!

 

What size tanks are these?

 

HI brodylane1122!

Tetra usually recommends 1 small fish per 10 gallons for the first 2 weeks. From their Fishlore Q&A (

"Our normal recommendation is to add one small fish per
ten gallons of water. However, you CAN fully stock the tank, you just
need to keep a close eye on it, and be sure to not complicate matters by
overfeeding as well. We recommend this method for African cichlid tanks
since it is best to fully stock such a tank from the beginning due to
territorial issues. For a novice fish-keeper, we'd recommend the one
small fish per ten gallons rule for the first two weeks. Within two
weeks, TSS should have fully cycled the tank and they can start slowly
adding more fish, one at a time."

Hope that helps!

 

What size tanks are these?

Ten gallon.

HI brodylane1122!

Tetra usually recommends 1 small fish per 10 gallons for the first 2 weeks. From their Fishlore Q&A (

"Our normal recommendation is to add one small fish per
ten gallons of water. However, you CAN fully stock the tank, you just
need to keep a close eye on it, and be sure to not complicate matters by
overfeeding as well. We recommend this method for African cichlid tanks
since it is best to fully stock such a tank from the beginning due to
territorial issues. For a novice fish-keeper, we'd recommend the one
small fish per ten gallons rule for the first two weeks. Within two
weeks, TSS should have fully cycled the tank and they can start slowly
adding more fish, one at a time."

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info. My issue is with the fact that this will be a heavily planted tank. I'm worried that with the plants cleaning up the tank, one fish won't do much. I don't want to stall the cycle by not adding enough ammonia for the bacteria.

 

You could do 2 platies for each if you're worried about it.

 

Ten gallon.



Thanks for the info. My issue is with the fact that this will be a heavily planted tank. I'm worried that with the plants cleaning up the tank, one fish won't do much. I don't want to stall the cycle by not adding enough ammonia for the bacteria.

Ahhhh I see. Hopefully someone with experience with TSS and heavily planted tanks will come along!

 

Thanks guys. I'll go with two. I don't want to push it!