Dosing ammonia with corals/fish in the tank?

[Jon0807]

I have some zoas just about ready to come out of QT and into the DT. I've been dosing ammonia while the tank is empty but once I put the zoas in, can I keep dosing ammonia or should I use actual food like shrimp to keep the bacteria happy? Same situation for fish. I'll probably only be adding 1 or 2 fish in the next month or so. I plan on having about 4-5 small fish, several soft corals, and a small clean up crew total in my 36g bow front. I just worry that all the good bacteria will die off wish such a light bio load in the beginning, but don't wanna harm anything with the pure ammonia.

 

[leviburns89]

I would recommend using mysis or table shrimp ripped into peices.

This will aid tour ammonia, as well as provide food for the zoas to filter out. It won't take long for microorganisms to break the food down enough that it is sent through the water column.

Just be sure your params are in check before adding corals.

Your biggest concerns would be actual ammonia levels, as well as high nitrates.

Zoas and most lps and softies can handle a bit of phosphates and nitrates. As long as they don't get super high.

Less than .05 phos

And less than 15ppm nitrates

Keep those numbers and you'll be fine.

I've actually had trouble with too clean of water with my tank. My mushrooms and paly/zoas would close until I raised phosphate to about .02

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[Sk8r]

Absolutely don't add ammonia with fish/corals and test to be sure it's all gone before you put anything living into that tank. Bacteria take a long time to starve out.

 

[thegrun]

The bacteria will live over a year without food, no need to add any.

 

[Jon0807]

Wow, really glad I asked here first. Thanks for the info guys!

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I'd like to add that when using ammonia to start a cycle it is to be put in once and once only to 2ppm ish and left to run the cycle from there. It's not to be dosed everyday. Once the ammonia turns into nitrites and then the nitrites turn to nitrates. Then once your tank is left with with no ammonia or nitrites and only the nitrates your tank is cycled. Then adding CUC or first fish add to the amount of bio load that your tank can handle. Allow a week or two between additions for your bacteria to grow to accommodate your critters. Do not do this too fast as it will overload ammonia due to waste from the critters until the bacteria can handle the extra load.