Too many new fish!

[jinnix]

My boyfriend and I have just set up a new 20 gallon tank. We put 3 zebra danios and 1 long gold finned danio to start cycling. Our filter broke a few days ago and we went out to buy a new one, and have had no problems with the tank since. We lost one zebra danio during the week. But today while I was at work, my boyfriend went out to "surprise me" and bought four new gold finned danios and another zebra. So now we have a total of 8 danios in a tank that is less than a week old! It's been a few hours that they've been in the tank and all seems well so far. But I know that ammonia-fighting bacteria haven't grown enough to handle 8 fish. Is there anything we can do to help the bacteria grow and not lose any fish? We're planning on doing daily water changes to help keep ammonia down; is there anything else we can do to help? Thank you!

 

[alink]

Hello and welcome to Fishlore!

I am glad you came here to ask help. That shows you really care about your fish and doing things right (cycling)!

There are several products on the market that provide a sample beneficial ammonia converting bacteria (BB) that will seed your tank with a colony of this BB. They will multiply as needed over time to process the amount of ammonia that is produced and convert it Nitrite. Then there is another type of bacteria that will develop to convert the Nitrite to Nitrate, which is far less toxic and is removed with your water changes or consumed by live plants.

The product that is recommended the most and I have had personal success with is called Tetra Safe Start Plus. You can find this at PetCo, PetSmart, Wal-mart or maybe your private local fish store. It is imperative that you follow the directions explicitly on the bottle. There are a few sizes, the 3.38 fl oz is perfect your tank, you will add the whole dose at once. But before you do that we need to know what your water parameters are.

API makes a freshwater master test kit that is also available at the locations mentioned above. It is a liquid kit which is much more accurate than the strip tests, and will be cheaper in the long run because you get so many more tests out of it. So when you get that, do a test for the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate and report the results here. This will tell us how far along you are in cycling process and if it is safe to add the TSS+.

That is a lot of information so I will stop there for now. Let me know if you need anything to be clarified.

 

[Et tu]

Look into Tetra Safe Start. Lots of excellent posts on Fishlore about fIsh in cycle using TSS.

 

[Anders247]

Welcome to fishlore!
Agreed, TSS would be what I would use.

 

[isacr]

Out of curiosity is ApI quick start any good?

Sent from my HTC One using Fish Lore Aquarium Fish Forum mobile app

 

[alink]

Some people have used it with success. I have not used it. It is mostly agreed that TSS+ will work the best, provided you follow the directions correctly.

 

[RRBWG]

Out of curiosity is ApI quick start any good?

Sent from my HTC One using Fish Lore Aquarium Fish Forum mobile app

I tried ApI quick start and it didn't work at all so I bought TSS and cycled my tank in a week. It was a miracle!

 

[LiterallyHydro]

API Quick Start I believe is a snake oil product. I've used it in the past and it has done nothing at all.