Add fish now or wait?

[Ippyroy]

My tank is cycled, but I just got my summer work schedule. 6 days a week, 14 hours a day. Obviously I will not be paying much attention to my tank. I will be putting off getting any corals until September at the earliest. However, I am wondering if it would be ok to get a few fish so that the tank will continue to mature. I will be able to do a few small water changes throughout the summer but I don't see myself figuring out how much to dose nor anything else that has to do with corals. Should I add fish now, or is better to just continue ghost feeding, or should I just let it sit fallow? TIA

 

[Hydrored]

Do you have anybody that can feed for you? A couple small clown fish should be fine as long as you can keep up with a little weekly maintenance. I would stay away from wrasses or other fish that require multiple feedings. The good news on letting the tank mature is you have a higher success for coral.

 

[Ippyroy]

I will be able to feed three times a day, two frozen and one pellet. I am hoping for a blenny and probably a couple of clowns.

 

[DungSl1nger]

I have done the same thing. I have a couple of clowns, some cuc, a lawnmower blenny. I also have a Mandarin, she is just eating copepods. It’s pretty low maintenance but I do spend about 4 hours a week doing the basics. Copepod and phyto cultivation takes about half that time.

 

[Ippyroy]

2 hours a week sounds about right. I will be too tired to do much more. I hope that the tank will be good enough to start a fuge soon as well.

 

[mike550]

@Ippyroy how big is your tank? I have a 120G that had two clown fish for a couple of months before I started adding other fish, and I added corals around month four. It was nice because there wasn’t much to worry about and I learned slowly.

So I think adding a few fish and being able to keep an eye on things is a great way to start. Better than trying to rush in and adding a ton of stuff at once. If you’re fish only for a while I don’t think you need to worry about as many parameters or testing — but I could be wrong.

 

[Ippyroy]

The bad part is that I can't order any live animals after the middle of October due to not seeing above freezing temps till maybe late April. My tank right now is only 32 gallons. I will hopefully be upgrading to 120 in October and making the 32 gallon a display fuge. The original plan was to start getting corals in July/August and have them ready for the upgrade. I also was hoping to get a couple of tangs in September as well. Now I have to rethink the plans.

 

[Birddog61]

Add algae eaters early on as your planning laxed maintenance

 

[Ippyroy]

Hence the blenny. I would like to get a pink striped wrasse as well if I can find one.

 

[mike550]

Hence the blenny. I would like to get a pink striped wrasse as well if I can find one.

We have a diamond back goby and starry blenny. Those two do a great job of keeping things clean.

 

[Ippyroy]

We have a diamond back goby and starry blenny. Those two do a great job of keeping things clean.

They are all just so hard to find right now.

 

[mike550]

They are all just so hard to find right now.

Ah got it! Sorry.

 

[Ippyroy]

Ah got it! Sorry.

No need to say sorry. I understand that everyone is having this issue. I will possibly get a bicolor blenny tomorrow or I will wait till Friday to see if anyone gets a tailspot.