Tank is almost ready, a few final questions

[Anonymous]

Sounds great. I think the cool part of the hobby is the tinkering and making things work better.

Now, those pieces of live rock are going to add some dead and decaying material to start the nitrogen cycle. You might consider adding a small amount of food (frozen mysis shrimp or the food you will feed your fish when they are added) to continue this process. Your biological filtration will build to the level of available food, so if you "pretend" you have a fish or two, the filtration can start to build to the level of your pretend fish. Then, it will be able to handle the increased bioload of your first additions!

What are you planning on keeping in this wonderful aquatic habitat?

 

[Capslock]

SeahorseWhisperer,

I intend on starting out with soft coral first then work my way to fish. Unless I am convinced I should; for habitat reasons; put fish into the tank I do not see myself getting any for a couple of months.

My current plan was purchasing more live rock as the weeks go by and slowly adding coral. I like the look of soft coral the best so I intend on starting with a few there (names currently unknown; I still need to review that aspect)

At this point, again unless I am convinced otherwise, I do not want to take the route of adding fish for the sake of going through a cycle

Thougths?

 

[Anonymous]

Cool! Soft corals are great for starting out. But, you might want a clean up crew of sorts to start, once algae starts to grow on the rock and glass. Without fish and fish poop, you might not get much algae, though. That is a bonus!

If you get any hermit crabs, they will need to be fed.

I like soft corals, too.

 

[Capslock]

Yeah having a cleaning service in the tank would be good but, algea and things like that is what those critters typically feed on correct? If thats true, and I have not much that would start algea growth wouldnt there be a problem feeding the critters? I suppose purchasing food would fix this?

 

[Anonymous]

Correct! I would only get a few, if you have algae on the rock and glass.