Question About Adding Fish to DT After QT

[Itchy Trigger]

I've had four fish in quarantine since August 14. I started their quarantine procedure with a round of Metronidazole, then a week of prazipro, then I did tank transfer, which was completed this past weekend. The fish are all doing great, are clean, active and eating like champs.

Thursday, October 9 would be the 8 week mark, so that's when I was planning to start moving them into the DT. My question is this - would it be advisable to add the four of them all at the same time? They are small fish - an orange spot goby, royal gramma, green chromis and flasher wrasse. They will be the first fish in a 75g tank that has been up and running since March (tank is mature and has some leathers and LPS doing well in it, along with peppermint shrimp, plenty of snails and a few hermit crabs). Ordinarily I'd be inclined to add one or two at a time over a couple of weeks, but we're going out of town on October 11 and will be gone for a week. I'd rather have them in the DT than in QT while we're gone, as it's a bigger, nicer spot for them. I also thought about adding two of them before we go and the other two when we get back, which kind of feels like it might be the best option... Input? Thoughts?

 

[wooden_reefer]

With a separate container, boost the nitrification bacteria population on a small fraction of medium in the DT (such as a few pounds of LR) by adding a source of ammonia.

It can be very simple. In a 5 gal bucket 2/3 filled with tank water; place some medium of filtration from the DT, like LR, into it, circulate if you have an extra powerhead etc, and add a source of ammonia to about 2 ppm. Make sure you have not worked on the QT with your hands before. Do not contaminate, of course. Do this 2-3 weeks before your planned transfer of fish into DT

One the day of moving all fish to DT, rinse the LR in the container with DT water (in case there is traces of ammonia left) then add the LR back to DT.

You can use this method (I want to call it parallal incremental cycling) any time, but make sure you do not contaminate the DT with QT water before you are ready.

New tank syndrome should be a figment of the imagination. Strange is that many live with in for years.

 

[Itchy Trigger]

Interesting - sounds like a good idea. Thanks! Anyone else use this method?

 

[W1ngz]

I'm in a similar situation, but rather than boosting a small selection of live rock in 2ppm ammonia, I've started very small (0.25ppm) doses of ammonia into my 75 every 2 days. My intention wasn't to prevent any kind of mini-cycle, just to give it a bit of a head start.

 

[wooden_reefer]

Subjecting livestock to any ammonia is just unwise. The term for it is mini-cycling with livestock or new tank syndrome.

Plus, not subjecting them to any ammonia is easy.

Why subject livestock to any ammonia?

When a new livestock is introduced into a tank dt or qt, there should be excess nitrification bacteria that gradually die off, not excess bioload that causes detectable ammonia.

 

[Itchy Trigger]

I'm guessing there are no fish in W1ngz's tank.

 

[W1ngz]

I'm guessing there are no fish in W1ngz's tank.

Correct. The way I see it, either method should enable a cycled DT to more easily adjust to the sudden change from no (or negligible, in my case I have a couple of shrimp and hermits) bioload to the first few fish.

 

[wooden_reefer]

I'm guessing there are no fish in W1ngz's tank.

It is seldom true that a DT can be stocked all at once, so the situation where both the DT and the Qt have livestock is likely at one or more stages.

The newbie is suggested to stock fish slowly. The old reason often suggested is to allow the tank's bacterial population to adjust. This is the wrong reason.

The real reason why a newbie should stock fish slowly is in the newbie's lack of skill in disease control and so too many fish at once is hard to handle and mistakes are more costly.