Help with advice for fully stocking a tank in one shot...

[braaap]

I bought 5 from DR Reef to stock a 20 drop off. No crash. All is well. But my tank had been running over 2 months when I added them. It stocked with a CUC and corals that I have been heavily feeding.

 

[Artistic Oceans]

I agree. In my opinion, the main goal of reefing is to delay to final outcome. As soon as the tank becomes fully stocked and finished, many people get bored of it.

The fun is the wait, believe it or not.

Try to prolong the experience. Enjoy the proces

I would say that I wouldn’t do it and there is risk involved (you would have way more in common with the younger me over a decade ago). But there is risk involved every time we add any living and non living thing to our tank. Is it doable? Yes but I would have an ammonia alert and premade saltwater on hand and be available for 2-3 days to monitor. I’ll be looking forward to hearing about the successful outcome. By the way, really nice list of fish that you chose.

I take the view of updated cycling science: any use of bottle bac and or live rock transfers removes the risk of ammonia control issues and the real issue is fish disease control which isn’t impacted by fast or slow cycling methods.

The sole reason buyers think cycles take a long time are due to the impacts of api testing / .25-.5 ppm ammonia misreads but in reality it’s nearly impossible to find instances where ammonia kills new fish added into a display reef packed in surface area. every search we do to find a failed cycle is living fish doing just fine, and some reading on an api or red sea kit claiming a crash is impending that never comes.

he’s about to pay for quarantined fish, but then spend months adding in unquarantined corals and clean up crews etc, which undoes his initial qt investment. By using controlled start date cycling (knowing when a cycle will be done ahead of time, like sellers do to make the convention on time) a reefer can move confidently into disease planning steps, and that’s not a factor of concern for convention skip cycle setups.

That is not remotely true. I QT all my corals and inverts. Its just so easy vs the fish Id rather pay someone else to do the fish. The entire tank is qt'ed, even the live rock and sand.

 

[brandon429]

well done that's the right way then.

the main point is assuredness in predetermined cycling

it's possible to know the ready date for full stocking for any reef tank even before it's built, that's the fun part of the science. most people don't take time to isolate the new additions/run a dual tank setup that's a grade a effort agreed. it's what humblefish and Jay say to do, best procedure in the game so far.

if you inputted some live rock from another tank which by itself can probably run all the fish, plus a zip of bottle bac from Dr. Tims, fritz, biospira then you can't fail to carry the fish load planned, on any date that's added.

 

[Artistic Oceans]

well done that's the right way then.

the main point is assuredness in predetermined cycling

it's possible to know the ready date for full stocking for any reef tank even before it's built, that's the fun part of the science. most people don't take time to isolate the new additions/run a dual tank setup that's a grade a effort agreed. it's what humblefish and Jay say to do, best procedure in the game so far.

if you inputted some live rock from another tank which by itself can probably run all the fish, plus a zip of bottle bac from Dr. Tims, fritz, biospira then you can't fail to carry the fish load planned, on any date that's added.

Thats the idea, live rock, dr tims and microbacter 7, and heavy ammonia dosing after the cycle completes.

 

[brandon429]

no, the last part is not the right fit for a skip cycle.

but because what you're setting up is so powerful, the huge unnecessary blast of ammonia can be dealt with, on top of the planned initial bioload, if you want to test the bounds of cycling. the thread title asked for a one day stocked setup and in the reference link posted no ammonia was dosed

I prefer fish food over ammonia but either is ok if you must. I wouldn't use ammonia, we didn't in our skip cycle collections.

just live rock + bacteria from a bottle and then your planned bioload, it'll skip cycle. It's highly important you not attempt to verify anything about the cycle using API, most can't resist that part.

the use of Prime also plays no role in reef tank cycling, don't apply any cycling supports they're not needed. keeping up the excellent chain of command over disease imports is where all the planning exists and that part is already in motion doing well.