reef tank with no fish

[Tyler Bullock]

I set up a 10 gallon tank with zoas and mushrooms from my 90 gallon tank. Currently it has no fish. I have had bad luck with the weather and fedex getting coral/fish to me so I planning on keeping this tank with no fish in it for about 2-3 month or when the weather gets a little warmer. My question to you all is should I be dosing ammonia in small doses to make it seem like there are fish in there? or just do the typical feed the corals, then do water changes on it?

 

[AJsReef]

Is your tank already cycled? If so I wouldn’t add straight ammonia. Maybe a pinch of food here and there, if your corals are in need of nitrate and phosphate you could also dose them directly

 

[Tyler Bullock]

yes its cycled, had a bunch of rock/ bio balls ceramic things in my 90 for about 2 years.

 

[Spare time]

I would probably dose something like aquavitro fuel. I wouldn't just use ammonia since you need at least a little bit of phosphate

 

[Jeffcb]

No ammonia, feeding some would be good to keep nitrates up.

 

[Vested]

For shipping from what I’ve heard its actually safer during the colder months vs warm. Fish can survive cold temperatures much longer than when the box gets too hot. That being said I feel your pain, just last week lost a bunch of fish that got stuck with FedEX. Next time going to make sure theres no snow in Memphis as that seems to cause the most issues with FedEX.

 

[dedragon]

check LFS for some hermit crabs (scarlet or dwarf zebra or dwarf blues are the safest) as well as an assortment of snails if you dont already have in your larger tank to transfer over. They should do a fine job of consuming food/algae and creating some floating waste for your corals

 

[Jon_W79]

You could dose ammonium every 15 or 20 minutes during the photoperiod. You would also need to dose phosphate. I think that dosing ammonium will likely cause cyano problems unless you make conditions favorable/more favorable for heterotrophic bacteria, to do this I would dose vitamins B1,B5,B6, and B12, and I would dose at least a small amount of organic carbon every day. I think that a lot of corals can use heterotrophic bacteria as food.

 

[Nemo&Friends]

Do you have fish in your 90? if so, you could use the water from you 90 to feed your corals. When doing a water change, put some of that water in your coral tank.

 

[Tyler Bullock]

I dose n03 and p04 in my 90 already, i'll prob just bring some trochus snails over from the 90 as well, they reproduced and i went from having about 20 to hundreds. I'll probably just dose nitrates and phosphates in the 10 as well, keep the tank a little cleaner then with roids or bene.

 

[Tyler Bullock]

Do you have fish in your 90? if so, you could use the water from you 90 to feed your corals. When doing a water change, put some of that water in your coral tank.

Also thought about doing this. will probably be easier.

 

[Jon_W79]

You could dose ammonium every 15 or 20 minutes during the photoperiod. You would also need to dose phosphate. I think that dosing ammonium will likely cause cyano problems unless you make conditions favorable/more favorable for heterotrophic bacteria, to do this I would dose vitamins B1,B5,B6, and B12, and I would dose at least a small amount of organic carbon every day. I think that a lot of corals can use heterotrophic bacteria as food.

Dosing ammonium without dosing organic carbon may not cause cyano, but I believe dosing ammonium and organic carbon without vitamins probably will. I have experience with this.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd probably just add some fish food periodically.

 

[Tyler Bullock]

I'd probably just add some fish food periodically.

Perfect, i'll do this.

 

[Jon_W79]

I think that trying to get ammonia to corals using flake or pellet food is usually very wasteful, and dirty, and corals usually probably get very little if any ammonia from it. I think the food will go to a low flow area and the bacteria will get all the ammonia(I wonder if ammonia consuming bacteria will grow on the food and get all the ammonia). I think that the best way to add ammonia with food is to hang a media bag with medium to large size holes near the top of the water, underwater, and add some food to it, like freeze dried krill, add water flow in a way that the ammonia will get to the corals the most, and put the rotting food in the refrigerator in the media bag as much as you can when the reef tank is dark.