New tank--fish ready?

[Captain Jack]

I added water to my 125 gallon tank 3 weeks ago. I have 160 lbs liverock and 80 lbs live sand in it. I added Bio spira right away to the tank. I waited until the tank had zero ammonia and zero nitrites and then did a 30 gallon water change earlier today. I just tested everything with a Red Sea test kit and here are the results:
KH = 2.0 ppm
PH = 8.2 ppm
MG = 800 ppm
Amonia = 0-0.1
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 40 ppm
calcium = 200 ppm
I am going to be near a LFS (about 2 hours away from my house) next Tuesday and was thinking I would grab a pair of clown fish to put in the tank. I think my tank looks ready, but don't know much about reefing yet. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[CodyRVA]

When you tested did you ever have a reading of ammonia? You should have seen an ammonia spike, drop... then nitrite spike, drop, then a nitrate spike. If you did, then yea should be ready for fish. You should take a water sample to your LFS to test your parameters just so you have an idea where you are. Right now, CA, MG, ALK don't really matter. Just keep your PH and salinity in check for your fishy friends. Take a deeper look into your chemistry once your tank becomes more established.

 

[sbash]

To be clear, you started with 160 lbs of live rock?

Either way, you can test the tank by putting a cocktail shrimp in it until you see ammonia (say 1 or 2ppm). Remove the shrimp and see how long it takes for the tank to process the ammonia (i.e. down to 0). It has been a while since I have used this technique, but I recall my tests processing the ammonia inside of 48 hours.

So if you do this right away, you should be down to 0 ammonia and nitrites by Tuesday.

That said, have you thought about a quarantine for your new fish?

 

[Whipples]

Welcome! The ammonia not being absolutely 0 is something to keep an eye on, it should be zero. If you plan on adding any corals you will want to get MG, KH, and CA much higher (1300ppm, 8-11dKH, 400+ppm) respectively, which can be done through different salts or addititves. What kind of test kits are you using? And have you had any diatoms show up on the sand yet? If I were you, I would wait a week and try adding 10% janitorial ammonia (something with no added odors or colors, can be had at Ace Hardware or other stores like that) and use http://www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm to calculate how much for a 1-2ppm dose. Measure the next day and if you read zero ammonia you are ready to add fish!

 

[Fish Werx]

Calcium, Kh and mag seem a bit low to me? Nitrates a bit high? But Im not sure what you are going for. Mixed reef or FOWLER?
Is your temp stable and within a good range? And what about your SG? Those things need to be stable and set before adding fish IMO. But Im no expert, so I sure someone here may have better advice for you.

Good luck with the new tank!

 

[CodyRVA]

As mentioned, i wouldn't waste my time with the shrimp, just fowls up the water and takes more time. You can accomplish the same thing with pure ammonia, usually found at Ace Hardware; just make sure its pure... no detergents or coloring agents. Just add a cap full or so, you can't really over dose, one way or another the bacteria will process the ammonia.

If you used an API test kit, I note that I always got a small measurement of ammonia even a year after i setup my system. API kits are great starter kits, but do not rely on them.

 

[Captain Jack]

When you tested did you ever have a reading of ammonia? You should have seen an ammonia spike, drop... then nitrite spike, drop, then a nitrate spike. If you did, then yea should be ready for fish. You should take a water sample to your LFS to test your parameters just so you have an idea where you are. Right now, CA, MG, ALK don't really matter. Just keep your PH and salinity in check for your fishy friends. Take a deeper look into your chemistry once your tank becomes more established.

Thanks! Yes my ammonia did spike, it started going up until it was at the top of my color chart for my tester kit and then slowly came back down. Good idea about giving a water sample to the LFS

 

[CodyRVA]

Thanks! Yes my ammonia did spike, it started going up until it was at the top of my color chart for my tester kit and then slowly came back down. Good idea about giving a water sample to the LFS

Good deal, as long as you saw a nitrite spike shortly after and then a nitrate spike, you should be good to go. Keep in mind, if this is the case then your system is cycled. You will either need to "feed the tank" with small bits of food to provide the bacteria with a food source, or get your fish. Otherwise you'll have to go through the cycling process again. Good luck!

 

[Captain Jack]

To be clear, you started with 160 lbs of live rock?

Either way, you can test the tank by putting a cocktail shrimp in it until you see ammonia (say 1 or 2ppm). Remove the shrimp and see how long it takes for the tank to process the ammonia (i.e. down to 0). It has been a while since I have used this technique, but I recall my tests processing the ammonia inside of 48 hours.

So if you do this right away, you should be down to 0 ammonia and nitrites by Tuesday.

That said, have you thought about a quarantine for your new fish?

Yes, I have thought about a quarantine tank, but have not set one up yet...need to get like a ten gallon tank or something to set one up. I was thinking that it would not be that important on the first fish, because they really have nothing to contaminate. If something happened I could shock the whole tank.

 

[Captain Jack]

Calcium, Kh and mag seem a bit low to me? Nitrates a bit high? But Im not sure what you are going for. Mixed reef or FOWLER?
Is your temp stable and within a good range? And what about your SG? Those things need to be stable and set before adding fish IMO. But Im no expert, so I sure someone here may have better advice for you.

Good luck with the new tank!

The nitrates are high, but I have no algae, I'm assuming it is because I have a media filter with carbon and GFO and also a 40 watt UV sterilizer. I plan on adding fish slowly and then after several months start adding coral slowly.

 

[Captain Jack]

As mentioned, i wouldn't waste my time with the shrimp, just fowls up the water and takes more time. You can accomplish the same thing with pure ammonia, usually found at Ace Hardware; just make sure its pure... no detergents or coloring agents. Just add a cap full or so, you can't really over dose, one way or another the bacteria will process the ammonia.

If you used an API test kit, I note that I always got a small measurement of ammonia even a year after i setup my system. API kits are great starter kits, but do not rely on them.

I did actually add a shrimp about 10 days ago. It was in the tank for about 4 days and was getting pretty nasty, but then I read something on R2R that said if you have live rock you do not want to add a shrimp, so I pulled it out...my ammonia levels were up there, so pretty sure it cycled now.

 

[Captain Jack]

Good deal, as long as you saw a nitrite spike shortly after and then a nitrate spike, you should be good to go. Keep in mind, if this is the case then your system is cycled. You will either need to "feed the tank" with small bits of food to provide the bacteria with a food source, or get your fish. Otherwise you'll have to go through the cycling process again. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, I did not know about feeding the tank. I will add some fish food pellets to make sure I don't need to cycle it again. Thanks!

 

[CodyRVA]

Thanks for the advice, I did not know about feeding the tank. I will add some fish food pellets to make sure I don't need to cycle it again. Thanks!

Very welcome, don't over do it; you only need a small amount. You might not have algae issues because it just takes time to develop. Do a water change to remove the nitrates. Strongly recommend a protein skimmer, there are other benefits like water oxygenation. I'd say you're ready for fish; still best to Quarantine. I've done this in a 5 gallon bucket before, just put an air line, heater, and change the water to not build up ammonia. This would work fine for something like clown fish.

 

[Smo]

Recommend reading the quarantine procedures in the fish disease and diagnosis threads. Great info here. You want to take care of any problems in QT--not your DT where it becomes very difficult if not impractical to treat sick fish.

 

[Mako_SnowflakeEel]

You should get a snowflake eel

 

[Mako_SnowflakeEel]

They are very hardy cool and good for beginners and a good first fish don't involve a lot of care

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

The only issue I am seeing is that currently you don't have any food for your bacteria. Usually when you add a product like biospria, you want to also add some form of livestock to help give the bacteria something to eat so it doesn't die off.. your best course of action is going to be to buy another small bottle of bacteria, and only add it once you put your first fish in (maybe start with a small school of chromis 4/5?)

 

[randy4083]

You don't want to treat any copper in your dt if your planning on putting corals in there because I've heard that you never get all the copper back out and corals and invertebrates can't be put in copper so if I were you I would setup a quarantine tank first because the only thing that really work's for ich and stuff is copper and nothing else really work's that says reef safe so don't waste your money on the stuff that says reef safe so I would setup a quarantine tank first before I bought any fish