Ghost Feeding Tank After Cycle

My cycle appears to be done, but I don't plan on adding livestock for another month or so. How often and how much should I ghost feed the tank in order to maintain the beneficial bacteria? Thanks in advance!!!

 

Could add in a a snail or hermit or two to start your clean up crew.

How big is your tank? How much live rock?

 

Whats your cycle time(days?)

Um I would figure for your ghost feedings from once to twice a day maybe..

 

How much do you plan on feeding the tank once you put a little fishy in there? I would do a small ghost feeding every other day or so. This is just what I would do, it's nothing scientific.

 

yeah, I think you'll just have to test and watch, start smaller so you don't stall a cycle and just test for a few weeks and adjust, keep in mind the fish food will break down more slowly than a shrimp so I'd write down a table or chart and do every few days to start at a set amount and then keep it there or increase slowly.

 

It's a 75 gallon tank with 70 pounds of BRS Reef Saver rock and about 10 pounds of live rock. It has been about 32 days since the cycle started and the ammonia is 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 5. I was holding off on the CUC because the tank still looks great. Haven't seen the diatom bloom yet.

 

Thanks for the feedback, but not sure what you mean by "stall a cycle". Please clarify.

 

If you rinsed the rock well and used RODI water, you may not see a big diatom bloom. I would add a half cube of brine or mysis shrimp 2-3x per week. I'd also get 1 or 2 dwarf hermits to help clean up the rotting shrimp. It'll get the bio load started and they're in there for when the algae does start.

 

you can stall a cycle, by not feeding the bacteria enough and letting them die off or feeding too much and letting nitrite get over 5, which will stall it and kill the process

 

Just put pure ammonia into tank and forget about ghost feeding.

The load ghost feeding put into tank means nothing to what a fish can do, and when you introduce your livestock, you might put your tank into a mini cycle until bacteria adapt to new load.