I don’t recommend adding fish right away. The Bio-Spira will “initiate” the cycle, but it will not prevent the initial ammonia spike. Your fish would most likely survive it, but in my opinion it is still inhumane to subject a fish to poor water conditions when this can be easily avoided by using ammonia to cycle the aquarium.
You can buy ammonium chloride like the one from Dr Tim’s, but you can also just use CLEAR ammonia from the grocery store to cycle the tank. just make sure it has no added fragrances or surfactants. A good way to check is to shake the bottle vigorously; if it suds up it’s no good for use in your aquarium. If the bubbles pop right away it should be okay to use. I filled an eye dropper with clear ammonia and used it to cycle my tank successfully
**A word of warning: do NOT continue to dose ammonia without keeping an eye on your nitrite level**. If your nitrite level gets too high, it will inhibit the growth of nitrite-to-nitrate converting bacteria and your cycle will stall. (This happened to me when cycling my tank and it prolonged the process by a LOT). I suggest you dose ammonia to 1-2pm and wait for nitrite levels to fall to at least 0.25ppm before adding more ammonia.
Also, if your live rock is being shipped to you keep in mind that there could be considerable die-off in transit. When you add the rock to your aquarium you could see an ammonia spike just from the rock itself. I would wait a few days after adding the rock before dosing any additional ammonia.
ultimately, your goal should be to get to a point where you can add ammonia to a concentration of 1ppm and get readings of 0ppm ammonia and 0ppm nitrite within 24 hours.
A final word on quarantine, I don’t think it is necessary as long as you get both fish from the same location. If you only plan to add two fish and you get them at the same time from the same system at your LFS then they will have been exposed to the same pathogens. If your LFS’s system has ich, the only good quarantine will do is keeping it out of your display tank. If you do add the fish to your display and they develop ich you could still try treating for it BEFORE adding inverts. If the treatment is unsuccessful you’ll have to let the tank sit fallow (without fish) for 2-3 months before you can try again. If you can’t find the fish at the same store (unlikely since clowns and royal grammas are both pretty common in the hobby) you really should quarantine since you won’t want to risk infecting a healthy fish with a potentially unhealthy one.
Good luck!
