New Tank Setup

[edinphilly]

If you are still at 0 with all that live rock and having used added bacteria, I would say you're ready to add your clown pair. At least that is what I would do.

I'd only add an excess of food or add ammonia if I was trying to build up a bigger bacteria population i.e. your first fish was large and a messy eater (a big puffer or lionfish) and you needed to boost your ability to handle the bioload.

If you can't add the clowns for a few days just add the small bit of food you'd be feeding them to maintain the existing bacteria.

 

[Xavibear]

I'd definitely test your system before adding fish. Add some pure ammonia, if it is undetectable in 24 hours you are ready for a cleanup crew. Add a small cleanup crew for a couple of weeks, then you can start adding fish.

 

[moneymm]

i added some food pellets today, will test ammonia results tomorrow.

the guy at the LFS sold me omegaone small pellets (w/ garlic)... when i do get my fish eventually, should i not use this b/c of the garlic?

 

[edinphilly]

Garlic is ok. Vary their diet and avoid fish foods where phosphates are added to the food (listed in the ingredients).

 

[moneymm]

ok the results are in, i tested after 16 hours, and the ammonia was .5, and nitrates 10, waited another 8 hours for the full 24 hours and the ammonia is at .25 and nitrates 10.

Ph 8.2 and Nitrites 0

am i still ready for a cleanup crew, or is this level of ammonia too high after 24 hours of adding the ammonia?

 

[edinphilly]

New Tank Setup

You want ammonia at 0

Give it a couple days

 

[moneymm]

will do, should i still add the food everyday as an annomia source?

 

[edinphilly]

You can and go through a traditional longer cycling process. Personally I use the adding bacteria additives method and go more quickly. I've used both Microbacter7 and Stability with success. Once you add bacteria if it doesn't have a food sources (ammonia, or fish food, shrimp, or ultimately fish poo) it will die off. There seem to be a lot of die hard long cycling people on this forum who wear it as a badge of honor, but if you can safely speed it up without risking your livestock I'm all for it.

In my opinion if you either do a long cycle, or you shortcut with additive the most likely chance of failure comes from not acclimating the fish to the new tank. You need to match temp (easily achieved floating the bag) and salinity. I lost fish at first because the LFS a was at 1.019 and I run 1.025. The salinity change shocks and kills fish and inverts. Do some googling about acclimation and you'll avoid that pitfall.

 

[moneymm]

I added the bacteria on day one two and three (11 days ago) Long before I found this forum . But haven't added food till yesterday. Does that mean that bacteria died off?

I'm all for safely speeding up the process. However I was going to qt the new fish four a few weeks anyway. I'm stuck in limbo. Don't know if this water I have is good enough for a qt . And don't know if I just leave the dt by itself will it cycle on its own bc I already put in that bacteria...

 

[Xavibear]

Are you using Api's ammonia test? It can read .25 all of the time.

 

[moneymm]

Yea from API master kit test....

 

[edinphilly]

I agree API can be hard to read. I put the vial right up to the white part of the color card. If it isn't touching the white background I can't tell looking at it.

If you're putting the fish in QT you can ghost feed the display tank to keep the bacteria population going and then when you're ready to add the fish to the display tank your population should be fine and you can dose bacteria again right when you put the fish in if you still have some left.

The QT complicates things. I consciously chose not too. With just a few fish and none expensive I took my chances and have been fine. If I had a bigger tank or more expensive fish I would definitely QT them.