First Fish

[Calawah]

Hi all,

I've been laying low for a while, letting my tank cycle etc. Nitrates have been at 0 for about 3 weeks after an initial spike of 40ppm which was preceded by an ammonia spike. Fairly certain I'm on the right track, so I added fish over the weekend.

I picked up a yellow watchman goby, a black and white ocellaris clown and a red scooter blenny. I'm pretty excited to have the additions in my tank and they all seem to have acclimated well.

I know some of you will vehemently oppose the scooter blenny in a newer tank, but I've got pods out the yin yang! I put a bottle of ocean pods into my refugium right when I set the tank up (along with a little live rock rubble, chaeto, and some caulerpa) and I've been feeding the tank with about 2ml of phytoplankton (pod food) every other day. I started noticing pods on the glass at night right away, and now they're even there in the daytime, pretty cool to look at too, we've got a magnifying glass (hand lens) that really lets you get a good look at the little buggers. I also have a ton of the "gammarus" isopods that come out at night and feed on detritus. Not sure if they're good food for the scooter or not? Anyways if I see the pod population drop off I'll probably start a separate pod culture, cause I'm already attached the scooter and I would be loath to lose him to starvation.

Next up: corals! I'm thinking of starting with a frogspawn and a galaxy. Very interesting to watch and should be a pretty good set of "starter" corals. The Phyllangia that came on my live rock survived the cycle and seem to be thriving. I'm going to wait a week or two before adding the corals, to make sure the water quality is bueno. So far so good, I've been feeding the fish about a 1/4 cube of spirulina brine shrimp every day and the nitrates are still pegged at 0. Any unconsumed bits get wolfed down by the nassarius snails pretty quickly.

Thanks for reading!

[baugherb]

Awesome!!! Hope everything works out....

[lunatik_69]

I hope it works out for you, but I wouldnt have put 3 fishes at the same time. Remember that fish give off the most bio load. You need to let the B Bacteria to "deal" with the new bio load of the fish. Should have introduced 1 fish, wait 2-3 weeks, then add another fish, wait 2-3 weeks and so on. You might start to see a algae bloom soon. Keep an eye on your paras. Luna

[Calawah]

Yeah, I was concerned about that too, so I bought the smallest individuals they had at the lfs. They are all juvenile fish and are pretty small the clown is the largest and he's an inch in length--I would assume that 3 fish that weigh 2 grams would be a similar bioload to 1 fish that weighs 2 grams. A single 2 inch clown would probably out weigh all my pip squeaks combined, but so far so good, nitrates are still at 0. I'll post pics as soon as my camera battery is charged.

[nemo1991]

cool additions!

[lunatik_69]

Never go by the weight of the fish to stock your tank. Theres a HUGH difference between one big fish eating and three fish eating. Some fish feed all day picking away at the LR. It doesnt matter the size of the fish, but rather how many. IMO. Luna

[kimmy]

My scooter blenny will eat the mysis I feed my other fish also. Took him awhile, but I got him to take it. I too have an abundant # of pods. Have you checked him out @ night yet? Mine burries himself in the sand.

[Calawah]

Yeah I was watching this morning right after the actinics first came on, he wriggled out of the sandbed and started pecking at the live rock. He hasn't seemed too keen on brine shrimp yet, but he's always on the move --foraging and flexing his dorsal!

[Calawah]

Well, it's been 2 weeks now, I've checked my nitrates every couple of days and they are always registering as 0. I think my fuge, skimmer and LR/LS are doing a great job of keeping the nitrates down. How long should I wait before adding more fish? I would like to add a small school (3-4 fish) of green chromis as soon as its safe to...