A few post cycle/qt questions

[Huff747]

I've been going through the Dr. Tim's fishless cycling recipe and I'm past the point in the recipe where it says to "Add fish" but currently I have no fish to add. I have a pair of clowns in a QT tank where I am debating whether to treat them with copper. Seems some people say treat everything you can with copper while others say only treat if you see an issue so I'm still up in the air on what to do there. If I treat them then I'm at least a month plus from having anything to put in my display. I did see some white stringy poop and today is day 10 of treating their food with Metro+Focus and I haven't seen anymore recently.

I have also setup a separate invert QT tank which is approaching the end of it's cycle.

Display - Drilled 40 breeder with 20L sump with BRS Reef Saver (that was cured for more than a month before filling the tank), and dry sand that I rinsed as well as I could
QT - 10 gallon bare bottom with HOB filter, heater, air stone, and some PVC hiding places.
Invert QT - 10 gallon with sand and one piece of dry rock that wasn't in my display but was in the display's sump for a while, with HOB filter, heater, and small powerhead and Kessil 160 light because I want to use it to QT corals eventually too.

All three were started with Bio-Spira and Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride following the recipe from that site.

So here are my questions:

• Do I keep occasionally dosing Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride in the display to continue feeding the bacteria since I haven't added any fish and don't know exactly when I'll add fish yet? If so, how much an how often?
• Since the invert QT time is 76 days should I go ahead and pick up a small CUC to go into the invert QT to start that timeline? In 2.5 months I'd think I'd want some of that crew in my display to help with algae. If so does this seem like a reasonable place to start: 1 emerald crab, 2 trochus, 2 nassarius, 2 cerith, 2 dwarf hermits, and potentially a cleaner shrimp (kids choice and I find them interesting as well)? Maybe add a couple extra snails to remain in the invert QT tank as permanent CUC for it?
• Can/should I also look at a "Beginner" coral pack that could go in my invert QT to start the 76 days? If I'm reading everything correctly if I get a pack of small beginner LPS frags I shouldn't really have to worry about dosing yet if I'm doing regular water changes in the QT.
• I've read several people remove the plugs frags come on and re-glue them but not having had any corals before is this really a must? I've never touched a coral so I'd probably kill it trying to get it off a plug, let alone trying to glue it to a new plug.

I'm sure those aren't all my questions but that's all I can remember at the moment that I wanted to ask.

 

[Big G]

How long into the Bio-Spira/Dr. Tim's is the tank? Have you tested for Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates?

 

[Huff747]

My notebook is at home but I believe this is Day 11 or 12 of the recipe - http://store.drtimsaquatics.com/Recipes_ep_54-1.html . I have been testing as instructed and I saw the higher ammonia/nitrite in the first few days. I added 2mL of Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride yesterday before work since I hadn't added any fish to generate ammonia on day 9 of the recipe and this morning the Ammonia was 0 and Nitrite was 0.25. I didn't test Nitrates this morning but can test them when I get home from work.

 

[Whipples]

I only re-dose ammonia when it either "hangs" at a certain ppm, or if it drops to 0 and I want to test that it can clear it in 24 hours. Ammonia converts into nitrate at a crazy amount so the more ammonia you cycle the more nitrates you have to deal with at the end.

Cleaner invert QT- thats fine. You don't have to run any lights on the main tank while you do this to keep those algae at bay. there is no real risk to running without lights if you dont have any corals or fish in it.

If you plan on corals for QT just make sure you have adequate light, flow, and parameters, May be good experience to get practice with testing and observing . Make sure to restart the acclimation when you move them to the display assuming you use different lights on the two tanks.

It is not entirely necessary to remove a coral from a plug unless you dont want to mount the coral on the plug in the tank. I find the frag plug really helps when moving it around until you find a permanent home, just follow a dip protocol and use a tooth brush to gently rub off anything you see on the plug to minimize risk. You can also run them through QT.

 

[Huff747]

I only re-dose ammonia when it either "hangs" at a certain ppm, or if it drops to 0 and I want to test that it can clear it in 24 hours. Ammonia converts into nitrate at a crazy amount so the more ammonia you cycle the more nitrates you have to deal with at the end.

k, I just wasn't sure if the bacteria would need some additional food since I haven't and don't appear to be adding fish anytime real soon.

Cleaner invert QT- thats fine. You don't have to run any lights on the main tank while you do this to keep those algae at bay. there is no real risk to running without lights if you dont have any corals or fish in it.

If you plan on corals for QT just make sure you have adequate light, flow, and parameters, May be good experience to get practice with testing and observing . Make sure to restart the acclimation when you move them to the display assuming you use different lights on the two tanks.

I've got a Kessil 160 that should be arriving tomorrow for the coral/invert QT, which is probably overkill for a 10g QT but I got it used from here (thanks R2R), and the display has Kessil 360s that haven't been running since I don't have anything in it currently. I was basically trying to follow this for coral/invert QT - https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/how-to-quarantine-coral-and-inverts.228/ I just don't know when I should start this process because I'd think in 76 days I'd like to be adding CUC and a few beginner corals.

It is not entirely necessary to remove a coral from a plug unless you dont want to mount the coral on the plug in the tank. I find the frag plug really helps when moving it around until you find a permanent home, just follow a dip protocol and use a tooth brush to gently rub off anything you see on the plug to minimize risk. You can also run them through QT.

Yeah, my concern is just that I haven't done anything with corals before so I really don't know that I want to try to rip/cut one off the plug until I have some experience with them.

 

[Big G]

Generally speaking, by the end of 30 days most tanks are ready for fish. By then the ammonia cycle is done and you are watching nitrites levels and doing large water changes to decrease the nitrates. Once you have those nitrates down to the 10-15ish range with large water changes, most tanks are ready to add a fish or two depending on the bio-load the fish create. Gentle increases of bio-load are the way to go.
Reef Cleaners has very nice CUC packages. They have a calculator to estimate the number of the CUC for a given tank size. Since your tank is new, and there is not a lot to "clean up", simply choose a smaller tank size to estimate needs. They have a "fishless" system so fish diseases coming in with your CUC risk is greatly reduced.

 

[Whipples]

@Huff747 you can add a few drops of ammonia once a week or so if you don't have anything in it to keep them fed. These bacteria, if i remember it right, go dormant before dying which is how the bacteria in a bottle works

 

[Huff747]

How long into the Bio-Spira/Dr. Tim's is the tank? Have you tested for Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates?

Checked Nitrites and Nitrates when I got home since I read somewhere that some tests read a little Nitrite as a lot of Nitrate. Nitrites are now 0 and Nitrates are either 20 or 40. Can't tell well. But I haven't done a water change yet as part of the recipe and was planning that for Saturday so that should help bring that down some.

 

[Whipples]

Checked Nitrites and Nitrates when I got home since I read somewhere that some tests read a little Nitrite as a lot of Nitrate. Nitrites are now 0 and Nitrates are either 20 or 40. Can't tell well. But I haven't done a water change yet as part of the recipe and was planning that for Saturday so that should help bring that down some.

Do the biggest single water changes you can, far more effective for reducing nitrates than a few, smaller changes. The tank will be the weighted average of existing water and new water for nutrients, so the more you can take out and replace with 0 nitrate water the better!

 

[Big G]

Do the biggest single water changes you can, far more effective for reducing nitrates than a few, smaller changes. The tank will be the weighted average of existing water and new water for nutrients, so the more you can take out and replace with 0 nitrate water the better!

25% minimum up to 50% for that first change

 

[Huff747]

Gotcha. I'm prepared to do 50% on Saturday.