Adding coral

[jeff williams]

I tore down my original reef that was 4+ Yrs old because GSP had started to overtake some of my other corals. I re-scaped the tank added new live sand and bio-spira cycled the system about 2 weeks later I add 3 saltwater mollies and I’m ready to start adding coral here’s my question will adding coral to fast overwhelm the nitrifying bacteria? I have a whole tank full of fish and coral I need to start adding, the fish will be added back slowly but does it matter on the coral ? This is a mixed tank! Mostly lps

 

[blaxsun]

Nope. I added all my corals, inverts and fish the same day I setup my tank with Bio-Spira.

 

[Idech]

Nope. I added all my corals, inverts and fish the same day I setup my tank with Bio-Spira.

But corals do excrete their digested food, don’t they ? So in theory, this adds to the bioload. But not much I suppose ?

 

[blaxsun]

But corals do excrete their digested food, don’t they ? So in theory, this adds to the bioload. But not much I suppose ?

I added my cleaning crew, the protein skimmer and UV and let everything run wild. My nitrates went from 0 to 12 after about 2 weeks, remained there for another week or so and then started declining every week until somewhere between the 2-5ppm mark (where they remain to this day).

So you'll probably see a bit of a nitrate spike, but that's normal and to be expected.