Suddenly add 20 fish to Established tank

[Tou]

@brandon429 I have to admire your ability to convince people that their tank won't crash and everything won't die. You are becoming a pro at it.

I agree that Tou will be fine. If I can remove my 25-30+ adult cichlid tanks sandbed in a move without a toxic ammonia event then anyone with sufficient surface area can make much larger changes to bioload without a crash than anyone in 2010 would have risked or thought possible.

I would love to do experiments of bioload vs surface area to put numbers behind these new concepts but fish respiration and eating habits are hard to match. Either way, taking it easy, observing, reducing feeding for first couple days and having supplies on hand to correct is much cheaper than a bottle of bacteria.

Hi
Yea I am monitoring the parameters everything and see if anything changes. As of today, the parameters is remain the same.

 

[maroun.c]

I'd just add an ammonia alarm (Seachem makes one I use on my Qt tanks, which will notify yuo if Ammonia is rising. be ready to do large water changes if its needed and to add some bacteria. instant cycle bacteria would be best in this case although i typically don't resort to those and prefer to let tanks mature slowly. yet looking at the tank I believe you would be just without any of those.

 

[Tou]

Yea I actually do have an ammonia alarm stick to the glass. Makes monitoring it much easier but I still need to run test every other day for the first month to make sure everything is stable first.

 

[brandon429]

One more small detail thanks tons for all this info
how many days has this been running w the fish

 

[Tou]

They were put in on last Saturday 2/20/2021

 

[brandon429]

We are ~four days past the the nh3 concern window that’s amazing.

this thread would be going polar opposite if your ammonia said .5 or 8 ppm (readings we have on file for normally stocked, normal-running reefs, the false ammonia alert posts- using seachem badges, api and Red Sea ammonia, but not seneye)

-your reef would still be working the same, the thread would be polar opposite with nobody agreeing your system isn’t about to die

the lucky part isn’t the fish carry it’s the one or two nh3 testers we can’t wrangle into common reef tank performance allowing for the go ahead here. I would not have believed them one bit once the pics of the tank with fish were posted even if they said free ammonia was present, I believe the pics.


I thought they’d just been added today lol and tonite was the first o2 test, very neat to see one week under the belt. I believe reverse photosynthesis handles o2 amazingly well.

 

[brandon429]

Hey can we get an update hows this lot doing!

 

[Tou]

Hey Brandon
So everything seen to be doing great. Ammonia didn't not go up, nitrate is slowly creeping up because I am feeding much more now.
Also I increase the time period for my algae scrubber and chaeto light time.
Hopefully it will balance itself out eventually.

 

[MnFish1]

Hi Reefers
I need some advice from experts here.
So my 65 gallon tank is about 2 years old and was housing 4 fish and around 20+ anemone.
Recently I converted into a clownfish harem by adding 20 clownfish all at one time. Suppose 20 is a good number for them not to fight.

Right now everything is doing great, I am checking water everyday but I am bit concerned about ammonia spike since I added So many fish at one go.

My question is if ammonia spike happens because my bacterial can't handle the bioload what should I do?
-Should I buy a bacterial in a bottle and just pour it in? I am looking at either DR. Tims one and only or instant ocean bio spira.
-Is it a good idea to pour those bacterial into an already established tank?
-if I do more frequent water change, will the bacteria start to balance out the bio load on its own?

Also any other good recommendation on product for bacterial in a bottle or idea on how to deal with this situation?
I am all ears and here to learn.
Thank you all

I do not think that this number of fish in an established 65 gallon tank should cause a problem (unless some die for whatever reason - which is what I would watch for carefully. If you had added 20 angelfish, my guess is you would have had significant problems

 

[brandon429]

You wouldn’t think that agreed


but start a poll and don’t show them this link


potential titles: would adding twenty fish to a reef tank without giving time for the filter to catch up cause a cycle issue?

predicted returns: over 90% say yes, that’s the paradigm bet

if poll is ran in new tanks forum the response will be 95%+ i bet for re cycle

 

[MnFish1]

You wouldn’t think that agreed


but start a poll and don’t show them this link


potential titles: would adding twenty fish to a reef tank without giving time for the filter to catch up cause a cycle issue?

predicted returns: over 90% say yes, that’s the paradigm bet

if poll is ran in new tanks forum the response will be 95%+ i bet for re cycle

Well - my BET - would be that a lot of people wouldn't ask the correct questions, like the size of the tank compared to the size of the fish. I do not completely agree with you that bacteria completely colonize every surface in a tank (denitrifying bacteria) - Instead they are food limited. The reason the clown fish work is because they are not as metabolically active as lets say a tang (they tend not to swim as much, etc - and therefor have less waste/body weight, etc. If you added 4 harlequin tusks to that tank that were 6 inches long, my guess is you would have a cycle (i.e. a transient rise in ammonia) - even if it didnt cause deaths, etc.

 

[brandon429]

I would have been most impressed if we were removing his sandbed then adding the fish

 

[MnFish1]

I would have been most impressed if we were removing his sandbed then adding the fish

Why?

 

[brandon429]

Tou if you can update this it will be a solid, solid move for cycling science

 

[Tou]

@brandon429
Hi there Brandon
Sorry for not update for a while. So far my clowns are doing great but my no3 and po4 are climbing. I been using pearls and nopox to keep them down. Algae scrubber and HOB refugium is not export fast enough.

 

[brandon429]

and to cycling nerds that means the machinery is pumping like a diesel engine just hammering down ammonia, really strong thread to see shock absorber ammonia control in effect. Thanks tons for updates


being able to track long term the impacts of this activity is a direct reinforcement to updated cycling science regarding surface area rules in reef tank setups.

 

[MnFish1]

You wouldn’t think that agreed


but start a poll and don’t show them this link


potential titles: would adding twenty fish to a reef tank without giving time for the filter to catch up cause a cycle issue?

predicted returns: over 90% say yes, that’s the paradigm bet

if poll is ran in new tanks forum the response will be 95%+ i bet for re cycle

@brandon429 - no. I'm not starting a poll. I think your estimation of what people 'think' and what they 'actually think' is skewed. Because - anyone knows (as do you) - that it all depends on the size of the fish - and the size of the tank.

For example - if I had a cycled 20 gallon tank - and added 20 4 inch tangs - as a temporary QT - it would be a mess. If I added 20 1 inch wrasses to the same tank - it would work

 

[brandon429]

by not having any links handy, it saves you from having to verify that guess about lacking surface area. So, let’s see it tested in some way you feel is convincing, post that work here.


my observations and guesses come from patterned work threads regarding surface area testing in various ways, and to date we have not seen any post cycle reef become overcome by a given bioload and it’s day to day demands. Agreed there will be a breakpoint, but if I can’t think of one example and you haven’t actually tested any examples and logged them, we’re at an impasse


we study surface area removal to the extreme in running reef tanks, thats the same as upping a given bioload above as a test. It’s the inverse

and to date, though there is a breakpoint for sure, we have not found one reef tank pared down from its sandbed and some main rocks left with too little surface area to manage the complete current bioload, before removal. That patterning factors in my guesses.

 

[Jekyl]

@brandon429
Hi there Brandon
Sorry for not update for a while. So far my clowns are doing great but my no3 and po4 are climbing. I been using pearls and nopox to keep them down. Algae scrubber and HOB refugium is not export fast enough.

Small fish or not, it's a lot of bio load for a 65g. Had to know high nutrients were going to be part of it though.

 

[brandon429]

Jekyl agreed, that’s why I link to this as an exceptional cycling thread, even though we are dealing with a post cycle tank. It’s a test of a cycle to contain twenty new fish and their feed, it’s not just the fish. Feed input quadruples and holds…this tank is a total workhorse