All the advice that I can get.

Hey everyone! I am Matt and I am setting up my first reef tank. Here is my setup:
20 gallon nano tank.
8 lbs of rock, 40 lbs of live sand, all levels are perfect and I just threw in 2 damsels and 2 hermits to help my system get setup. Now that I am addicted to the hobby lol I am going to upgrade to a 55 gallon on Friday. My current setup should transfer nicely and I am currently planning a 10 gallon sump build. I look forward to the advice from this site.

 

Hey Matt welcome to 3reef! This site has a plethora of knowledge so be sure to search the forums and ask questions when you feel like you are stumped. You will likely have a lot of trial and error so don't rush your future setups too much. And yes this hobby is an addiction, in a good way

Cheers

 

first advice i can give you is avoid using fish to jump start the nitrogen cycle, if thats what you mean by "help my system get set up". other than that welcome to 3reef and the hobby

 

When you raise fry the fry tank is not cycled. It cycles with the fry in it. Fry die from many things but all must survive the dreaded "cycle" There is nothing wrong with cycling with live fish if you know what your are doing. But the advice above assumes you don't know how to control your system well enough and you will kill the fish and shrimp. He may be right. I cycle my tanks with dead shrimp and that seems OK to most reefers. Killing is killing.

 

when you raise fry you have no active filtration system (no sand bed, no live rock) unless you are running your system through a sump somehow (that means matured cycled water). when raising fry you are never really cycling at all, you are doing water changes to keep toxic levels down. this is very different from setting up a mature reef with a "complete, self-sustaining ecosystem"......

so what your saying is adding a dead shrimp sold as commercial food, is as bad as possibly killing a live fish slowly?....lol.....

 

but back to the OP you'll be able to cycle the tank with the fish inside but to avoid any unnecessary stress/damage due to ammonia burns, especially in the gill area, you'll be forced to regularly do water changes to keep ammonia in check this will most likely slow down the cycling period.

keep in mind in a 20 gallon tank levels will reach a critical point faster than in a larger volume of water.

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/saltwaterfishdiseases/a/aa061704ammonia.htm

 

You'll get great advice here and welcome to 3reef. Occasionally you'll get someone who posts on your question with absolutely no helpful advice so just ignore. No need to cycle with a live fish when there's so many ways to cycle a tank now in 2016. Concentrate on stability, Not just numbers and always research before you buy anything living to make sure it's compatible with your setup.

 

ill try to briefly explain the nitrogen cycle so you have a basic idea of how it works. though if you search online you'll find a gazillion posts on the matter....

simply put, it is this: ammonia (NH4)--> nitrite (NO2)-->nitrate (NO3). Nitrate is the final stage of the nitrogen cycle, as its name indicates...

basically what happens is as organic matter decomposes it releases ammonia, ammonia is the most toxic compound of the nitrogen cycle and therefore the most dangerous. This ammonia is a food source for so called "beneficial bacteria" that are able to, when a healthy population is reached, break down the ammonia almost instantly into nitrite. Nitrite in turn feeds other beneficial bacteria that break it down further into nitrates, the last stage of the nitrogen cycle. now nitrite isn't as dangerous as ammonia but can still cause damage to fish and invertebrates, less toxic than both ammonia and nitrite you have nitrates....the coral keepers nightmare....a high level of nitrates can can stunt coral growth and lead to bleaching.

nitrates are bound to accumulate in the tank (together with phosphates, more on that later), this is one of the reasons people do water changes. to "export" these excessive "nutrients" form their tanks. most of the time when people do a water changes however they are not only exporting these nutrients as mentioned, but also replenishing trace elements that have been consumed by the corals...but this is a whole different subject.

Together with nitrates, which i remind you are the end product of the nitrogen cycle you will most likely have a build up of phosphates as well, found in almost all matter, especially what we feed our fish. high levels of phosphates are perhaps worse than nitrates for corals. through out the years people have found a way to naturally filter nitrates (and phosphates) via various methods that I strongly recommend you look up (carbon dosing, the use of a skimmer etc.). the most common one being the use of macro algae. algae are living organisms that need three things to prosper; water, light and a source of food. luckily for us their preferred foods are phosphates and nitrates! so essentially what we are doing instead of a water change is allowing the cheatomorpha (the most commonly used macro algae) to absorb these "nasty" compounds, then by cutting the cheatmorpha back, freezing it, and throwing it away, or feeding it to our fish we are "exporting" nutrients and/or starting the cycle all over again.

this is the basic notion, there are of course exceptions to the rule when it comes to keep nitrates and phosphates in check....while it is best to try to keep a value of zero in terms of nitrates (No3) absolute zeros for phosphates (po4) can be detrimental to corals, especially coral tissue as they need this substance to regenerate. an ideal value of 0.03 ppm (NH4, NO2, should be flat zero) is what one should aim for when dealing with phosphates but this is something we can look into later when you start keeping your first corals....

P.S when you cycle with a live fish and you try to keep ammonia in check in order to keep the fish healthy what you are doing is removing a food source for beneficial bacteria, this means the population will take longer to establish prolonging your nitrogen cycle. This does not mean that once your beneficial bacteria are established that you can go to the local fish store (LFS), buy 50 fish and dump them all in at once in your system. The bacteria have "learned" to live in a determined environment with only so much ammonia. if you suddenly increase the dose of ammonia the bacteria will not be able to keep up with the sudden increase... this is why people advise to add about 1 or 2 fish maximum per week. this gives ample time for the beneficial bacteria to grow and deal with the new bio-load...

anyway hope this helps

 

Windy with another helpful contribution. Lol.

On that note, welcome to 3reef Matt. Some of the best advice that I wish I had followed would have to be, don't chase perfect pH, don't cheap out on equipment (different from finding good equipment used) and research everything you can.

Damsels can be aggressive fish that don't always play well with others, you may want to take the upgrade as an opportunity to catch them and buy a different fish.

Also, there is a search button on 3reef that is very helpful and will probably be able to answer any question you have.

 

I second that VA Reef, damsels are cute but insanely aggressive as they mature. Take this chance to lend them back to the fish store and wait until your tank is mature to add the fish you truly desire. Filtration and lighting should be your primary concern and get some mature live rock to help seed your tank if possible.