How long to wait before adding corals?

I would but pry not always safe to follow me.

But honestly as long as all your levels are fine and have been holding steady should be safe.

 

i wouldn't see to much of an issue at springfest. i added mine to my new tank after a big move with replacing over half the water and didn't loose a whole lot. just make sure to acclimate accordingly

 

Kylie, Am I understanding you right? Did you put fish and corals in your tank after it had only been setup for only a week or two?? Your first two sentences indicate that. I will wait until your answer before I give further advice. If this is true I hope you have good ammonia, nitrite and Nitrate test kits and have plenty of water for water changes.

 

If the parameters are right, and you already have coral and fish in there. I would say you are okay. Its all about the parameters.

 

Nope not going to chew you out at all. But before I gave you advice I wanted to know the details so I can save you a big potential disappointment. I am here to help not criticize, the clubs purpose is to help especially newer hobbyists.
The single largest problem in new tanks is people get bad advice, usually from sales people who don't know what they are talking about or just want to sell something. There are rules in setting up new tanks that if not followed 90% of the time lead to disaster, this is why so many people get into aquariums for a few months and the leave. I want to try and help you avoid this.
A new tank should completely cycle before adding critters. There are many factors that determine the length of time this will take, but as a rule of thumb this is 3-4 weeks in freshwater and 6-8 weeks in saltwater. This a guideline and not an absolute. It all has to do with bacteria growth and getting rid of bad substances naturally that are toxic to life, namely ammonia and Nitrite. I could explain the gory details of the cycle but many articles have already been written and to be honest I don't have time right now to go through it. Here is an article to read. Understanding this process is one of the most successful things to having a sustained environment to you animals. Many times people go by the seat of their pants here and loose everything without really knowing why. I have done this but it was 25 years ago.
http://www.peteducation.com/article...9&aid=2657
The things is Kylie it isn't necessarily done and over. This is a where I am truly trying to help. If there is something I don't know about your setup I apologize for going through all of this. But it sounds like this was a new tank that is only about 5 weeks old. If that is the case then it is very possible you are close to a crash. Not definitely by any means, but it is very possible, this time is very critical in your success.
The cycle is basically fish waste to Ammonia to nitrite to nitrate to nitrogen. Bacteria need to grow at every stage to go to the next. If you don't have enough of the specified bacteria present the nutrient will build up quickly tom toxic levels. This is why I mentioned test kits. In a new tank to know you have completed the cycle you must know that Ammonia started raising then nitrite started raising and ammonia started going down. The nitrite goes down and nitrate goes up  Bacteria causes this cycle to go through its process and only time will cause it go through this cycle. I would not trust the products on the market that say cycle your tank in one week two many people have waken up to everything dead.
Many people on a new tank will say "my parameters are fine". Well that is a big warning sign if supposedly everything is zero it means one of two things: Your tank hasn't begun to cycle or your test kits are hard to read and you only think they are 0. A new tank (or a cycles tank) will not have 0 levels it really isn't possible except maybe Nitrite. Ammonia and Nitrate are always present but ammonia should be VERY low almost undetectable that is critical.
So my advice after hopefully a learning type lecture instead of criticism is to be diligent. Test these three parameters daily and forget about testing anything else for now except salinity. Watch for this cycle. If Ammonia is detectable at all do a large water change, same with nitrite. Nitrite is not as toxic to marine inhabitants as freshwater but this is still an ongoing debate. Once your nitrate levels rise this is good, it means the second nitryfying bacteria is growing and converting Nitrite into Nitrate. In a new tank you will not be able to effectively turn nitrite into nitrate so it must be removed mechanically hence the number one reason for water changes in any successful aquarium.
My advice for spring fest is to take it VERY easy. Only get very hardy species, these aren't as exciting. Some of these are still very nice. I am afraid if you start buying the really neat SPS or LPS you are going to lose them, lose money and get very discouraged. This plays itself over and over, even with hobbyists with years of experiences.
I hope you take this as helpful advice and not as me pointing my finger and saying "bad girl". This hobby has a HUGE learning curve and we must all stick together to help each other succeed.
Sorry I don't have time to proof read this so I am sure there are MANY typos, I apologize.
Keep your stick on the ice.

 

I have to agree with Joel here.

Hopefully I can get Josh to chime in here. Look for his post title too much too fast. He built a nice restaraunt tank, had the LR cycling for a couple months, and set it up. Well the paramaters lookded great for awhile & then the cycle hit & he has been struggling to keep things alive since.

Give your tank some time to mature and stabilize. It is an ecosystem after all and is very fragile.

What kind of corals are you looking to add?

I am sure you will be much happier waiting & having your stuff live. You MAY be ok with adding corals from Spring Fest, but again you may be headed for disaster.

If you wait a couple months, I will be more then happy to hook you up with a bunch of frags from my tank.

 

I would totally wait awhile. I cycled my tank for two months before adding fish and corals....when I did it triggered a mini cycle. But since it had been up and running for so long, it was an easy problem to deal with.....

 

Great point that also is many times not understood. Adding fish adds Ammonia (fish waste), the  aerobic bacteria that turn ammonia into Nitrite (and nitrite to nitrate) only get to a population of their food source, ammonia (or nitrite). Any new life that is added more bacteria have to populate to handle the load. If you add too many they can't grow fast enough and the bad chemicals build up and kill.  Every time new life is added a small cycle occurs to grow the necessary bacteria to handle the new load.

 

I put fish, snails, and crabs in after my biocube was up for 3 weeks (with live sand and live rock). Corals went in on week 4.

I didn't lose anything I put in.

-Justin

 

Those are good questions and I will try to do them justice.
The different bacteria live in different places. As the article states the first two conversions use aerobic meaning they need oxygen. The third is anaerobic which means it can't have oxygen around and must live deep in your sand bed or rock. Hence why getting rid of nitrate is very hard because that bacteria cant live in oxygenated environments. Therefore it dies when oxygenated water passes through it. So water changes or a de-nitrifier are needed and many times both depending on load.
The bacteria cultures are usually seeded with live rock or sand. The questions (and usually we don't know) is how much died off in transition. This causes cycles in itself. But yes if you started with mature live rock this helps immensely but you can never know for sure how much died moving it from one environment to another. So like you are going to do you must watch very carefully.
This portion is pretty close to an exact science while many other aspects of this hobby are still greatly evolving. Even though it is science there are still cases like Justin that don't have problems doing what many other have done and met with disaster. I am guessing either large water changes at the right times or the biocube was seeded with good bacteria to start with in live rock or live sand. Also some of the "quick start" cultures sold can help but I never recommend them as a solution only as a helper.
I did not know you work at Petland. PLEASE be one of the LFS' employees that knows the Nitrate Cycle VERY well. This is the most important thing IMO you can teach new people. And PLEASE never let your customers go home with a new tank and fish in a bag. Tell them not to buy fish until after 4 weeks in freshwater and 6-8 weeks in saltwater maybe even giving them articles like I have cited. I guess you didn't say if you even work in the fish department. IMO LFS' do a lot of harm to their businesses because they don't give the customer good information which means in a month or two they won't be customers any more.

 

I will not tell you what to do, I will give you my opinion on what I did.
When I got my tank waited about 2 months before adding corals to it.  Most of those have been dead a long time now.
If I was going to do this all again, I would not add any softies for at least 6 months and wait over a year before adding SPS or anything labeled moderate to difficult.
I say this because I wasted so much money and killed so many things.  The longer your tank goes the more stable it gets.  It really does take a long time to develop good stability to a salt water tank.
Jeremy

 

I have a whole frag tank full of easy sps, lps, and zoos. (everything is $5) I have monti caps, spreading montis, birdsnest, millis, trumpets, zoos, frogspawn. (All this stuff I basically got from other club members) $100 buys you 20 hard to kill frags basically.

I was a beginner two years ago and as such most of my current coral are beginner type coral and very hearty. I am going to be getting into the more exotic stuff now that my tank is ready for them (2 years later).

I'm not really trying to make a sale here. I am just pointing out you can save a lot of cash by easing into it. It doesn't hurt so bad when your $5 coral RTN's, as opposed to that $50 one you might buy at SpringFest.....Also, by easing into it you will know your tank is REALLY stable when the frags really start growing. (took awhile for me but now I have very aggressive coral growth in my tank. It is almost becoming a PITA actually to keep it all in check)

 

There are so many factors in establishing a tank. Your tank may be awesome right now, but if you add a few things, or wait too long for a water change, or basically screw up any number of things you can start a mini cycle and everything goes to hell for awhile. Not to mention all the other things that can just happen like pests, or massive RTN'ing, or your monitors read wrong and your salinity goes south for example. All these problems are amplified at the start but with time an established tank can fight some of theses disasters off much better than a new tank. There is no real concrete answer to your question. Keeping an awesome tank is definately a little science, a little magic, a little common sense, and a lot of work.

 

Posted By PotRoast on 04/22/2010 01:11 PM
Keeping an awesome tank is definately a little science, a little magic, a little common sense, and a lot of work.
+1 but I'd throw in "a little luck" unless it's covered under "magic" /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif