Am I Ready For Fish?

Hows it going everybody i'm new to the saltwater world and i have heard many different opinons on things with salt h20 so any ways i recently got a 12g nano and have been patiently waiting to test my water to see if it's done with it's cyle so finaly I tested the H20 for calcium,nitrates, and phosphate and they checked out to be good so does mean it's ready for fish,anemone,coral ect.. or am i missing something still oh and i cycled with live rock thanks,

 

Hi,

If you haven't put anything in your tank, then everything should test as "perfect". Here's a couple of questions:
How long have you had the tank?
Do you have live sand and/or live rock?
Did you add any biological waste (cooked shrimp or fish food) to get the cycle started?
Without live san and/or rocks, it usually takes ~4-6 weeks to get the water started if you add a bio-load.
With live sand and/or rocks it takes ~2-3.
It will take a couple of months to be rady fot LPS and a few mire (if at all in a Nano) for SPS. Zoos and shrooms can genrally go in shortly after fish.

 

here is some info a lot people leave out or dont think about when adding fish... general rule of thumb is 1" of ADULT sized fish per 5g of water. Nano's are generally coral only tanks, or species specific, they ARE NIT intended for beginners because when something goes wrong, it goes wrong quick and you dont notice it till its too late. Thats why beginners should start out with no less then 75g. That way if something goes wrong, you have time to catch it before everything is dead.

just puttin my 2 cents in.

 

We have had the tank for about a week and a half. Yes we do have live sand and live rock. There is also two peices of coral. When we added the sand it came with a bag of bacteria to mix with the live sand... I am not sure what LPS means.. but our coral have opened up and look like they are doing great... We tested the water last night and the water seems to be up to par... I dont see why the water would not be alright because we bought it from the store we bought the tank from.... By the way thanks for all your help!!! So would it be the end of the world if I put a clown fish in my tank?

 

Hi Again,

The live sand and rock along with the bacteria will help "kick start" the process, but you still need to get it going with a little bit of organic waste. Don't start with a clown. Get a chromis or damsel and a few hermit crabs. As you feed them the extra food and waste will provide amonia for the nitrogen cycle. You will see a spike in Nitrites and Nitrates, though if you bought saltwater, live rock and sand, it should be short lived. Start with the cheap fish and once it has run for a week without any serious increase in toxins, then add the long term residents.
BTW, helpful acronyms:
LPS - Large Polyp Stony - Corals like frogspawn, hammer, torch
SPS - Small Polyp Stony - The HARDEST to care for and usually with the highest light requirements (7+ Watts/Gal). Includes Acropora, montipora
The rest are ususally classified as "Softies" - Zooanthids, mushrooms, nepthea, ricordea. These are "usually" easier to care for and take less light.

One final thing you may want to investigate is growing Macro Algae in your tank. This will help keep down Nitrates and help starve out annoying glass algae. You can actually get some pretty red algae. Here's a picture of a 1.5 Gal tank that looks great with some red macro algae:

 

If you're new to salt water, I don't know that a nano tank was the best choice to start with. Those are supposedly "expert only" tanks. The larger the tank, the more forgiving it is.

I would give your tank atleast 3 weeks to cycle, before adding fish. If you're going to add something, start with a blue damsel. They're inexpensive, and they are hardy fish.

You're really going to have to keep an eye on your water parameters, and be very dilligent with water changes. Nano's will react much more rapidly to change than a larger tank.

Joe

 

Good point JM!

One way you can get around the nano problem is creating a large sump for the tank. If you have a stand or the ability to connect an external tank, tell me and I can give you a few hints.

 

yes i did that mistake years ago , i started marine with a 65ltr tank .... it was real hard ... bigger the better!!!!!!

 

ya i have the sraight stand with skinnk cabinet that is made for the nanos but i open to all ideas and opinions thanks for all your help guys

 

Like the others have said. Nanos are usually not for beginners however you can over come this with great practice. I would hold off on putting anything in there for a little while. At least 2 more weeks. Once this time is up put something inexpensive in there like a Damsel, I use feeder mollies, as they are very cheap and you can put alot in your tank to start your tank out and give the bio a good start as well. Then when your ready after about another 2 weeks or so go and take them out return them to the LFS and get something a little better. I just gave them to the store as they were like 16cents each Make sure to keep up with the tests in that small of a tank and if you need to do a change do it slowly. A big note for a nano owner, you are not going to be able to have much of a bio load, meaning you will not be able to have allot of fish and other living things in your tank without increasing the water column. To increase it you can add a sump which would be great. Other then that just let it sit for a couple more weeks then add something small to it and let it go for a couple more weeks then repost your findings and thoughts.