How do i keep the hitchhikers???

[kstuart]

How do i keep hitchhikers alive through the cycle. i just started cycling a aquapod 12gallon, i bought about 15-16 lbs of high quality cured live rock. I used just the normal old agra type reef sand. On the rock i found i got a 3-4" brittle/serpent starfish and a really nice zoo polyp. The star seems to be happy and doing well currently and the polyp opened up fully within hours. My question is how do i keep them alive through the cycle? will i need to keep the amonnia, nitrites and nitrates to smaller levels for them to live? I figure i could do some partial water changes during the cycle and maybe they'd live and it would just take me a longer time then normal to fully cycle. what do you think?

 

[Kabong]

There generaly tougher then you think. Otherwise they whouldnt have made it this far.
But yes doing some water changes will make the survival rate for your hitchhikers.
I doubt it will affect your cureing time much either.

 

[WaterKeeper]

Water changes will not slow down things a bit and will keep ammonia levels manageable. That in itself will go a long way in keeping as many of you hitchhikers alive as possible. For that small amount of LR I'd do 50% water changes every day.

 

[kstuart]

What level of ammonia gets dangerous to the live stock? .25, .50??

 

[WaterKeeper]

That is a question that really can't be answered. Coralline can tolerate some fairly high levels but some critters on the rock would suffer at much lower levels. In many cases the levels of ammonia are very high during shipping so the bulk of the damage is done before it ever reaches your doorstep. I'm going to say that levels in the curing vat, even with a good amount of water changes, will be several time the levels you mention Stuart. I would guess 10 ppm is fairly normal during curing. Even at those levels things like fan worms and some encrusting sponges survive. Bottom line is endeavor to keep it as low as possible but don't be worried that even with those measures there are losses.