Finally Adding Fish

zromano · Dec 28, 2018

Hello fellow R2Rers -

It has been a long month and a half waiting to add fish to my tank. Parameter wise, my tank was ready about 20 days ago but with the holidays and traveling I didn't want to force anything. So I'm finally adding two clownfish to my tank tomorrow. Currently only have a clean up crew in the tank.

I'm wanting to get some more color and have a great deal of some beautiful hammer corals for $45 available at my LFS (pretty large colonies too!). I'm running the Biocube 32 and have the InTank media filter added as well as a Tunze 9001 protein skimmer but stock lighting. I realize this is probably the top range of corals I'll be able to get with these lights.

My question is whether or not it is too aggressive to add two clowns and a hammer coral to my tank tomorrow?

Parameters have been perfect for the past 3 weeks so I'm not overly worried about that. Any thoughts?

Brad Miller · Dec 28, 2018

I would put the clowns in and only start adding coral much later.
Nothing in this hobby comes from rushing it.

Ron Reefman · Dec 29, 2018

I agree with Brad. You tank is cycled and that's great. But over the next 2 to 4 months you may very well have outbreaks of diatoms, algae or bacteria blooms. None of these are critical and they aren't hard on fish either. But corals can't clean these things off and it makes losing corals a lot easier. If you really want to start adding coral, start small and start inexpensive until your tank is more mature. You may never see these possible blooms, but if you have corals and do have one or more of these blooms, it could be hard on the coral. You are just better off to wait until the tank is more mature and stable. And I don't mean stable in terms of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I mean in terms of things you can't test for like algae and bacteria.

There is a reason for the old saying about reef tanks. "Nothing good happens quickly in a reef tank!"

Take your time and enjoy the ride. Spend time looking at the small things that change over time in your tank.