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Hey there I just got my new 55g today. I have bio spira on hand and wanted to know will 10 zebra dainos and 5 panda cories be enough to supply the bio spira with enough waste to work with. I also was thinking about taking a filter pad out one of my established filters and hiding it inside a decoration to help supply more bacteria. Also does prime work against bio spira i read on the package that bio spira works against ammonia killer. Prime detoxicfies ammonia and nitrates but i used it because it kill chlorine and chlormine and other things. Please let me know if you know the answer

Personally I wouldnt suggest adding the panda cories till the tank is compleatly cycled. They are among some of the less hardy of corys and might not be the best to handle a cycling tank.
How large are the danios, IMO combined with the biospira you'll be fine, just as always stock the tank slowly.

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they are about an inch each

br - I would not use Pandas in any situation where you could get even a miniscule amount of ammonia or nitrite. Such fish need to be in a "seasoned" tank that is nice and fishy. Plus, pandas ideally should be added to such a tank in at least a number of twelve. Pandas do best in large schools.

The danios won't place much of a load on the tank. What other fish do you want to stock it with and maybe we can find something in there more suitable than the pandas.

BioSpira is the premier choice. I would advise against Prime, when in doubt. What you may consider is Bio-Safe, the one Marineland suggests. Once the tank is established I would go for Prime, but initially, follow instructions on BioSpira.

As a side note, I usually don't add my biospira until about 6 hours after I add my fish so there is some minimal ammonia available. You can even begin with just your danios, but your biocolony will build slower. With so few danios in such a large tank, you may even want to wait 24 hours before dosing the BioSpira. AFterall, the bacteria needs something to eat - ammonia to start.

Once your tank reaches 10ppm of nitrates, then add another school of fish and more biospira. Good bacteria grows slowly and in response to the fish load. The only way to be able to put alot of fish in at once, is to do fishless cycling with a heavy ammonia load. In fact, BioSpira can be used to speed that up. You would use ordinary household ammonia without detergents, scents, dyes, or other chemicals. We can help you with that, if you choose to go that route. The only draw back is that you would be looking at an empty tank for two weeks and dosing ammonia. But you sure wouldn't lose any fish

Any seeded media you can use from a healthy tank is wonderful. I often recommend cutting open a cartridge and stuffing some surface gravel in from a seeded tank. It puts that gravel right smack into the water flow and close to the area where you want good bacteria colonizing.

Never use time alone to determine when you add the next school. Rather, use ammonia, nitrite and nitrates. If you stock slowly enough, you are not likely to see any blips at all in subsequent stockings with Bio-Spira.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 27-Mar-2005 09:20

Last edited by Cory_Di at 27-Mar-2005 09:21

wow so i guess my tank wont cycle that fast then because i added the bio spira in with the fish. Looks like i have to go buy more hopefully my fish store still has it. right now its just 16 danios in the tank. The other danios came from my turtle tank now my turtle is lonley. They was supposed to be dinner but end up being the turtle best friend. My future stocking plans are a group of 10 cories 5 otts 10 cardnals and 10 Eye spot rasboras i think thats how you spell it lol. They will go along with 10 danios and ill put the other 6 back in the turtle tank. How hardy our the eye spot rasboras? I was thinking of adding them next.

I don't know much about eyespot rasboras, so hopefully someone else can comment.

Cories can be added after the tank is cycled. I like to add one week past the day I feel the tank has fully cycled, just to let it really get robust. One thing about newly cycled tanks is that they are very unstable and easily go into mini-cycles. The colony is growing and cleaning filters, gravel vacs and any tinkering or light medicating can throw them off. More established tanks wouldn't blink at such things.

Your biospira is fine - no need to purchase more for this round, especially with Danios. They are very cycle hardy. I'll bet you see nitrates within the next 4-5 days. It may not be enough to show on your first label (like, 5ppm), but you may see that it is darker than zero. By 9-10 days, I'll bet you see a more robust number like 5-7. I would not add more fish until you get up around 10ppm. You shouldn't need to do water changes, other than maybe to do a "hover vac" without disturbing the gravel to get uneaten food. I wouldn't even expect to see ammonia or nitrite. At the most, maybe 0.25.

That's actually a pretty good number of danios to start with for your size tank. Are you planning any other kind of cories besides delicate Pandas? If so, maybe after the tank cycles this round, you could add a four-some of jullii, which are more hardy. Then later after the tank has become robust add a group of 10 pandas, or 12 if you can handle it.

Your cardinals and Pandas will be the most vulnerable. While many fish can adapt outside their stated zones, cardinals truly do best in more neutral or acid pH. What is your pH? Are you planning on adding co2 to lower it?

Something you can do to help the cycle along is to toss in a small bottom feeder wafer and let the danios pic at it. Those things give off good ammonia. But, I would pull out what they don't eat when you see it fuzz up so drop it into an accesible corner where it can't get nudged under something. Columnaris bacteria grows on uneaten food. The more ammonia being fed into the system, the more robust your biocolony will be. It can only be as big as the ammonia source.

I would, however, buy a few bags of the BioSpira and keep it in your fridge if you can afford it. Use the amount for a 55 gal any time you add more fish.

Have you used the surface area stocking rule to figure out your numbers?


Last edited by Cory_Di at 27-Mar-2005 21:55

maybe ill add the carnals in last. I will evenually have a c02 injector when i get plants im still reading on them Looks like i might be going with java fern and a.swords since they are like the easiest to take care of. I heard driftwood lowers ph too right now my ph tap is 7.3 how low will the c02 and driftwood lower it? Whats a good small yellowfish you know of thats peaceful? can you link me to any i might not go with the eye spots. Also i might go with some albino cories for the bottom since they are hardy and add the pandas in later. So my stock will look like this 10 zebra dainos
10 cardnals
10 panda cories
6 albino cories
5 otts
and 10 yellow fish that would fit in this or maybe a few gourmias that are yellow????
That should fit the tank none of these fish produce that much waste and ill do weekly water changes sounds good???

When you say your pH out of the tap is 7.3, is that straight out of the tap, or at least 24 hours after it is sitting out and circulating? Water coming through pipes will have compressed gases which may initially lower the pH. When you drop a bubbler in a gallon of water and check it 24 hours later, you may get something very different. In my case, it comes out at 7.0 and rises to 8.0. My tanks run at about 7.7 without co2, once aged and with weekly water changes. If the 55 is filled, what is the pH on it now that it has been running?

Yes, driftwood can lower pH, but if you boil all the tannins out so it doesn't make the water orange, it loses some of that ability. You could explore using other things like peat in the filter, or other filter media for softening water. pH should not be altered more than 0.2 in 24 hours without causing stress. Co2 seems to be an exception tho as I've seen mine swing around while it adjusted . They were going from 7.8 to 7.0 in like an hour when I put too much yeast in .

Co2 with a 55 will be more challenging unless you get a compressed gas system. FRANK knows about that. DIY is possible, but you will need many bottles all feeding into the tank.

The only yellowfish I can think of would be a species of rainbow. There are cichlids, but you would need higher pH for those. Look up the Bosemani Rainbow in our profiles who has a yellow orange in it. But rainbows can be bigger.

Use the surface area rule: Tank Length x Tank Width in inches. Divide that number by 12. That is the total number of inches of ADULT fish you can have. Never compute fish length when purchased as they often grow. Use our profiles.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 28-Mar-2005 18:52

I just finished cycling my new 55g freshwater (I have a 45g established tank as well) using 10 zebra danios - the entire cycling process took about 4 to 5 weeks and I was able to track the progress of the nitrites steadily rising and then falling to zero - all the danios (except 1) have made it through the cycling process - their schooling behavior is pretty neat and I'm almost tempted to keep them but have my heart set on angels and pearl gouramis with a school of bandit cories - my advice is to be patient with the cycling process and go slow on stocking your tank - your fish and pocketbook will both appreciate the extra time

hey newmand did you use bio spira?

br - no I did not - I just kept doing water tests to check levels of ammonia and nitrite - it was pure textbook with the levels of ammonia first rising then falling to 0 then nitrite rising then slowly falling to 0 - the only advice I can give is that you want this as a long term hobby then be patient - err on the side of being overpatient and stocking slowly - newman

i have experinced with the cycle because i had to cycle a 20 gallon which took about month. I wanted to speed it up this time with bio spira I just needed some advice from people who experinced with it

Last edited by brtaylor2000 at 04-Apr-2005 13:19

wow day 12 50ppm nitrate should i go head and add my next school?