Would you add the fish now or wait?

[Titus]

I recently set up a new 20g tank. Long term, it will hold only a pair of clowns and an RBTA or 2. You can see the details on the setup HERE. The Cliff notes: The tank was set up with new Tropic Reef sand, new Marco rock, and some rubble from the fuge of another tank of mine. I dosed ammonia on day one, and MB7 daily.

The good news: The cycle completed today, 16 days in.

The Bad news: On top of the expected diatoms, GHA and Cyano took over around day 12. I suspect it was lying dormant on the rubble from my big tank (that went through a phase of GHA and Cyano in August), and it came to life in the new tank with a combination of phosphates leaching from the rock and the fact that day 12 was probably about the time that the nitrites started to get converted to nitrates. I siphoned off a bunch of it while doing a 15% water change this morning, but as you can see from the pick below, it is still pretty nasty. By the end of each day, the rocks are covered in air bubbles filled cyano.

The Fish: I have a pair of clowns for the tank that have been in QT all month. They will be ready to move in to the tank this weekend. The tank has cycled, so technically it is ready for them. With that said, I am leery about moving them in to a tank in the middle of the battle with the ugglies, where I would stress them out with cleanings/small water changes every other day.

Would you add the fish now, or wait?

 

[initial_reefer]

i'd take care of the problems first

 

[Titus]

i'd take care of the problems first

The problem is, who knows how long that will be. One side of me says that a large % of people go through these battles, usually with fish already in the tank, and I never here of them hurting the fish. I have also heard people battling the issues for months on end. I guess I could argue both side of this forever. LOL

 

[Pkunk35]

I'd wait too. Your ammonia cycle may be "done" but your tank is still maturing. I would go with something like pods first, they need the headstart when building populations anyway.

Here's a great article by Borneman on Tank Maturity: The Building of a Reef (tank)


I'm not saying that your clownfish will die if you throw em in there (I doubt they would) but I think caution is prudent and very very free.

That said, i've done similar things and gotten away with it. I just don't think i would risk it anymore tho.

 

[notxes11]

maybe a small clean up crew to battle the HA. and a bit of flow increase for the cyano. that way what u add is helping instead of possibly exacerbating the problem in the way of more bioload and nutrients produced by the clowns.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

I would solve the HA and cyano issues. The excess food and waste from the clowns may add more fuel to the fire and make the situation worse. Adding some members of the CUC should help. Also, I would kill the lights.

 

[Titus]

Yeah, I think I will wait it out. I don't think I will make any lighting changes. I figure the phosphates are there, and need to come out. The Chemi-pure elite will help, and I will probably replace it much sooner than normal as it is cheap and easy to replace and keep working at full strength. That said, the cheapest and easiest way to get the phosphates out right now is to leave the lights running and let the Cyano use it up. I will siphon out a bunch of slime every few days, and be effectively exporting the phosphates. At some point, the phosphates being released from the rock will slow to the point that the gfo in the chemi-pure will beat out the cyano. That process worked to tackle my cyano outbreak in my big tank in about 3 weeks. Hopefully I can be just as successful with this one.

As for CUC, I am a QT fanatic, and even my inverts go through a month in QT. I have 8 little red leg hermits in QT now that I will move over this weekend, then I will buy a bunch more snails and crabs for the invert QT. I need to get some pods too, as they were the only thing in my big tank that i ever saw eating cyano. Hopefully I can find some locally.