Is too much beneficial bacteria too much?

Question

I added some tetra safestart to my 30gallon tank that had fish living in it for more than a month. I added it because the local petshop said I should because of the way the fish was acting. The tank is very cloudy and I can barely see in it. One of the fish started swiming vertically at the top so I decided to take them out and put all 7 fish in my 10 gallon tank for the time being.

Answer 1

You cannot have "too much" beneficial bacteria.  A tank will only support as much benefical bacteria as there is ammonia to feed off of.  The rest of the bacteria will just die off.  That's why adding too many fish at once is not a good idea.  There is not enough beneficial bacteria to sustain the extra bioload of the extra fish.  You have to add new fish slowly so the bacteria can grow to handle the extra load of fish and the ammonia produced by their waste.

Your tank was probably cloudy because there was a bacterial bloom.  If you took all the fish out, then the bacteria will probably die and you will have to start over again.  Not to mention, adding 7 fish at once to your 10 gallon is probably going to cause it to go into a mini cycle!  You need to either put some fish back into your 30 gallon, or put in some ammonia, or some fish food or something to keep the cycle going.  You don't want to have to start all over again when you have the cycle started already!

Answer 2

Your tank is still cycling. Without any fish in the tank it will not finsih cycling. You need a source of waste for the beneficial bacteria to grow. Good idea taking out the fish as they would probably have died. Do a fishless cycle with pure ammonia.

Answer 3

you used too much.