Live Rock and Ich, new tank questions

[bfoleyiii]

I used a rock from the LFS to help seed my new 125, also a small bottle of bio-spira. After a couple of days of fish food and no ammonia I figured I would just go straight to dosing 10ml ammonia and read something on the test kits. So fast forward about two weeks and the tank will process the dosage of ammonia in less than 24 hours.

This occurred much faster than the last tank we had and I am wondering I should be concerned with Ich and the seed rock, thus needing to leave the tank fallow another 6-8 weeks? If this is the case should I continue to dose the ammonia daily to keep the bacteria going? Should I increase the dose?

We haven't decided which fish to start with but that quarantine process buys me 4-5 weeks so if I stall I can get to the 8 weeks without much issue, but the wife and kids see the test reading coming back where dad said they needed to be and are chomping at the bit to see something in the tank.

Thanks for any information you may have.

 

[thegrun]

Stop dosing ammonia! Adding more ammonia will only leave you with more nitrates and a possible algae problem at the end of the cycle. The bacteria will live for over a year without food (ammonia) so unless you plan on leaving your tank fallow for a year there is no reason to add more ammonia. Did your live rock come from a tank with fish? If so it would be a good idea to leave the tank fallow for 72 days, 8 weeks would not be long enough to ensure an ich free tank. If the holding tank did not have fish in it the likelihood of it having ich would be greatly reduced, there is still obviously a chance of ich but it would be small. I would probably add fish if that were the case and take the risk.

 

[CarrieB]

Or consider just adding inverts, if you want to see stuff moving around. Shrimp are pretty entertaining. So are sea urchins and they eat algae. I left mine fallow with a sea cucumber and a large hermit crab that I had been given and they were enough to make the tank feel occupied while I waited.


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[abIngenui]

I second the inverts. There are all kinds of neat little critters to provide some biologic load to your tank all the while providing nice entertainment for you.

Hermit crabs are always fun and then there are a few snails I would recommend. If you have a sand bed, nassarius snails are fun to watch after lights out. I find fighting conchs infinitely amusing as they go around using their trunk to look for food. Porcelain crabs are neat, and those big feather duster worms provide some scenery.

If your parameters are in check, you could start with some small frags of softies or the like.

 

[bfoleyiii]

Thanks for the information and options.

Good to know the bacteria can survive for extended periods of time with out ammonia, so I will stop adding that.

I will check and see which inverts the family would like to see crawling around for the next few weeks.

We talked about some softies on the way into town this morning so once I hear back about my light fixture we will look at something along those lines.

 

[oneofmany]

Check this out.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rs/feature/index.php

HTH.

 

[tonyjd34]

Just for some insight, in regards to oneofmany's link above, why would there be denitrifying bacteria present without a food source. I'm yet to set up a sw tank having only exp. W/ fw, but its often stated that the denitrifying bacteria mass would only grow by adding more source food for said bacteria, ie why you dont add too many new fish at once in order to get the bacteria growth caught up.
Why would there not be an equilibrium in a sw tank? Much along the lines of numerous posts ive read about brittle star worms and other fauna that only propagate according to the availabilty of food? Won't bacteria act in the same manner regardless of "live rock" as long as there is a medium for them to grow on, ie any rock, glass, substrate?... Please help me understand this.