Fritz cycle and adding corals sooner

[SlipperyWhipple]

So I have been up and running for about 2 months and I feel better and better everyday about my tank. I’m getting the hang of things and I am trying my hardest to be patient. I started the tank off the right way (some may disagree) by getting a refugium starter pack from Algaebarn. I added Fritzzyme turbo start 900 and 5-7 days later added chaeto, copepods, and phyto. I don’t have a full 360 of my fuge so I don’t know if the pods took but everything else is running great. Skimmer is dialed in, ATO installed, current livestock is 2 clowns, 1 bangaai cardinal, 1 mandarin dragonet, 8 hermits, and 10 astrea snails. As I said, everything is thriving, I have had zero ammonia spikes after the initial week or two of cycling, clowns have been in there close to the whole time. I know the tank isn’t mature enough but I was wanting to start getting into easy LPS and maybe some softies after the first of the year. Has anyone had luck adding coral sooner when they’ve used the fritz starter? I haven’t gone through any GHA but I have had diatoms but I’ve heard people say they never had to endure GHA on fritz. What has been your experience if any with this particular product?

 

[brandon429]

Yes your tank can have some starter corals no prob

feed them with hq marine coral food since your rock is still building up a food web and they’ll do fine.

 

[SlipperyWhipple]

Yes your tank can have some starter corals no prob

feed them with hq marine coral food since your rock is still building up a food web and they’ll do fine.

I’m not sure what a food web is but I was told to start transitioning to a coral salt like the fritz blue box before I do start to put coral in. Do you think that’s enough to keep the corals happy if, after I do multiple water changes, I keep doing bi weekly water changes or will I have to dose? It’s a 60g cube with 15g sump.

 

[brandon429]

bi weekly water changes of -any- salt brand including instant ocean will run that tank until you have a very large amnt of fast growing coralline or stony corals. all the frags you can pack into it for a long time aren't going to change params much between the current system and one with 20 new small frags in place for example, they mainly just sit there looking all nice and they can be fed in creative means without polluting your whole tank, like spot injections over the coral w pumps off maybe once or twice a week vs just casting into the top water.

when rocks have been underwater for years/months in high quality reef settings they take on hundreds of attached plants and animals on the outer and inner surface, its the pigmentation and color and texture we see in true live rocks, and as these animals reproduce, die, grow etc they cast off bits into the tank that are part of a food web that corals eat.

you will be supplementing that process so the corals dont starve

 

[SlipperyWhipple]

bi weekly water changes of -any- salt brand including instant ocean will run that tank until you have a very large amnt of fast growing coralline or stony corals. all the frags you can pack into it for a long time aren't going to change params much between the current system and one with 20 new small frags in place for example, they mainly just sit there looking all nice and they can be fed in creative means without polluting your whole tank, like spot injections over the coral w pumps off maybe once or twice a week vs just casting into the top water.

when rocks have been underwater for years/months in high quality reef settings they take on hundreds of attached plants and animals on the outer and inner surface, its the pigmentation and color and texture we see in true live rocks, and as these animals reproduce, die, grow etc they cast off bits into the tank that are part of a food web that corals eat.

you will be supplementing that process so the corals dont starve

Oh ok. Thank you.

 

[brandon429]

Creative feeding is going to be the minor challenge, littering the tank with uneaten food so that enough lands on the corals a couple times a week w bring algae issues. consider a little trick like this, add to this type of approach over time as you want to pack feed into the corals not around them:

for your first few frags, they can all be set plug included in the sand at feeding time or left there a while out of convenience. zoanthids, a candy coral head glued to a frag plug, perhaps a little chip of brain coral, envision instead of casting food all over the tank you scoot em close together on the sand, then take a small cup creatively weighted down and you invert it over them, capping into place.

you inject the feed into a hole in the cup

they eat cuz its contained, leave it about 30 mins. stick a siphon tube into the hole and siphon with an airline back out some waste feed.

lift cup turn on pumps you have fat corals and literally no waste. stuff like that is how you can easily not have to wait a long time for corals, feed is all they need and some decent average params.

 

[SlipperyWhipple]

Creative feeding is going to be the minor challenge, littering the tank with uneaten food so that enough lands on the corals a couple times a week w bring algae issues. consider a little trick like this, add to this type of approach over time as you want to pack feed into the corals not around them:

for your first few frags, they can all be set plug included in the sand at feeding time or left there a while out of convenience. zoanthids, a candy coral head glued to a frag plug, perhaps a little chip of brain coral, envision instead of casting food all over the tank you scoot em close together on the sand, then take a small cup creatively weighted down and you invert it over them, capping into place.

you inject the feed into a hole in the cup

they eat cuz its contained, leave it about 30 mins. stick a siphon tube into the hole and siphon with an airline back out some waste feed.

lift cup turn on pumps you have fat corals and literally no waste. stuff like that is how you can easily not have to wait a long time for corals, feed is all they need and some decent average params.

That is a creative way to do it. Thank you for the suggestion.