Is it safe to introduce my Zoas during cycle

[GibsonGuitars]

Hello, I have a new tank in the cycle process. I am using the Red Sea reef mature system. A good friend gave me a bunch of frags for my new tank. All these frags are over crowed in my 5 gallon quarantine tank... WAY OVER CROWED. My new tank is at 36ppm Nitrate right now, 1-2 ppm Ammonia and 0.6 nitrite. In 4 days nitrate projects to be down to 20ppm, in 7 days nitrate will be 10ppm. I have 35-40 heads of Zoas, 7-8 heads of Blasts, 20 heads of Acans in this 5 gallon tank. (I know, it’s seriously not the situation I wanted) Is it worse to keep them in the Quarantine tank? I am doing 50% water changes every 2-3 days to keep the qt tank stable. When will it be safe to transfer these frags to my new tank... thanks.

 

[andrewey]

Can your friend hold them? QT will always be safer than introducing coral into a tank with 2ppm ammonia. I would also never use "projections" to estimate time frame. For a variety of reasons, I would see if your friend or a LFS could hold your coral. It seems like your current situation will force you into a bad decision and you'll needlessly lose corals. I'm not quite sure why your friend would give you coral if you didn't have a cycled tank already?

 

[GibsonGuitars]

Yes, long sorry story of bad timing... bad bad luck..my original new tank arrived broken, Took longer to replace than expected, my friend lives very far and planned the vacation/visit and couldn’t change the time... I have another tank that I could have placed the frags in that started having huge issues I didn’t want to spread to the new tank... and boom, I end up with all my frags in my QT tank. The Red Sea reef mature kit has been on the money so far when I used it in the past, the projected numbers have been almost exact every time... but yes, over the barrel here...

Figure info if I can buy myself 5-10 days until the new tank numbers get better I can pull this off. Where should the ammonia , Nitrate and nitrite be before it’s safe to transfer them?

 

[andrewey]

You're not looking for a single value for any of them, you want to see how long it takes for your rock to process 2ppm ammonia. If you have any ammonia with your readings, you know it can't, therefore there is no use trying. Only when your ammonia drops to 0 can you start testing your rock by dosing your tank to 2ppm and seeing how many hours it takes to drop it back down to 0. If it takes too long, your tank has not finished cycling.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

You're not looking for a single value for any of them, you want to see how long it takes for your rock to process 2ppm ammonia. If you have any ammonia with your readings, you know it can't, therefore there is no use trying. Only when your ammonia drops to 0 can you start testing your rock by dosing your tank to 2ppm and seeing how many hours it takes to drop it back down to 0. If it takes too long, your tank has not finished cycling.

Ok, thank you... at least I have a “goal” to know when it’s safe... I took your advice and asked my LFS and (I spend a lot there) and they said they would be willing to corner off a spot in the there frag tank for me. Didn’t even think of that before, appreciate the advice.

 

[andrewey]

I'm glad to hear it! This way you can take your time and ensure you don't loose any corals! Plus your corals will likely grow a bit more than they would have in the QT, so you'll come back home with slightly larger corals!

 

[Fernthereefer]

I am no expert, but I have seen people holding corals and even fish in temporary plastic bins (ideally food-safe), with the proper external filtration and regular WC. If you can get your hands into a cycled rock/sponge from your friend and start a temporary enclosure then you could hold them for a few weeks. IMO. I would run carbon and add seeding bacteria, but in a large enough volume you do not necessarily need the whole setup. (PS, you do need lights...)

Of course, if your LFS can hold them for the time being that's ideal. (But you may need to re-quarantine and of course dip)

 

[Rick5]

What's alarming you about the 5 gallon QT parameter-wise?

If I'm understanding your post, my recommendation is to treat the quarantine tank (not the cycling new tank) with some Prime, while performing water changes sensibly with the same parameters. That's assuming there's a likelihood of ammonia or nitrite in the QT. Provide more info and I'll try to be more helpful.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

What's alarming you about the 5 gallon QT parameter-wise?

If I'm understanding your post, my recommendation is to treat the quarantine tank (not the cycling new tank) with some Prime, while performing water changes sensibly with the same parameters. That's assuming there's a likelihood of ammonia or nitrite in the QT. Provide more info and I'll try to be more helpful.

I will run some current test when I get home... the tank has been loaded up for 4 days, every two days it turns brown, so I do a 50% water change and add a cap full of Dr.tims. So far the parameters haven’t gone to bad on me, 0 ammonia , 0.5 nitrite and 10 nitrate... On day 2 , but my fear is it will very quickly go to ****, start to cycle again, and the parameters will be far worse than the new 45 gallon in a matter of days. I’ll run some test, that will let me know... I added a Chempure Blue bag (sizes for 20 gallons) thinking that will help for now. I’ll post within 2 hours today’s numbers and see if it’s gone to pot or if what I am doing is working so far.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

What's alarming you about the 5 gallon QT parameter-wise?

If I'm understanding your post, my recommendation is to treat the quarantine tank (not the cycling new tank) with some Prime, while performing water changes sensibly with the same parameters. That's assuming there's a likelihood of ammonia or nitrite in the QT. Provide more info and I'll try to be more helpful.

Tested again, water change was 48 hours ago and nitrates and ammonia are climbing.

So, on day 2 with all of the frags here is the previous results: (tested 48 hours ago) ammonia 0.0, nitrite 0.5 nitrate 10ppm
Did a water change that same night.
Day 4 (Today)
Tested tonight (48 hours after water change):
Ammonia 0.5, nitrite 0.0, nitrate 15ppm.

I will need to do another water change tonight, and test again in 24 hours instead of 48 hours... and see how much it’s climbing per day?
If the numbers are going up with water changes every two days, does that mean I will have to try daily water changes?

 

[Fishko]

You're not looking for a single value for any of them, you want to see how long it takes for your rock to process 2ppm ammonia. If you have any ammonia with your readings, you know it can't, therefore there is no use trying. Only when your ammonia drops to 0 can you start testing your rock by dosing your tank to 2ppm and seeing how many hours it takes to drop it back down to 0. If it takes too long, your tank has not finished cycling.

Just wondering how fast or should the ammonia usually be consumed in a mature tank.