Wait time

how long did everyone wait untill they started to stock the tank. (New Tank).

 

I cycled my most recent tank in the same manner I have cycled all my previous salt water set ups

week 1 , salt mix and RODI water, plus base rock and all equipment set up- left it for 2 weeks to make sure everything was working OK and consistent
week 3 , Yellow tailed blue Damsel ( well 2 in my case but its a 75 and I never thought about it they paired off thats my tank sorted ) added
week 5 Diatoms arrived in force
week 10 - Diatoms died out and snails plus hermits added
week 12 - added next fish ( bananna wrasse)

there after every other week additions could have been made IMO

as fish additions create the most extra Bioload , IMO its better to get all your fish in 1st and then start adding corals and again a couple of bits every other week is a reasonable stocking policy

just the way I do it, but there are other equally valid methods

Steve

 

This sounds reasonable, but will the fish die if you try and stock to a new tank to fast and what brand RO/DI do you recommend

 

RODI - cant make a recomendation to you really, being in China means I am not sure whats available to you - hopefully others on here can help there

Stocking to quickly leads to all sorts of issues that someone with a new tank does not want
Damsels in general are tolerant of polutants which means they can survive in water that has their own un proccessed wastes in

New Tank Syndrome is a very common problem
the tank needs time to cycle, for the parameters to become consistent for bacteria to be established and to be able to multiply in accordance with subsequent stockings

fish introduced too quickly can suffer from the polution caused by their own wastes
the fish either die as a direct result of this or in a weakened state fall victims to parasitic infections that kill them

If you take your time and dont consider making additional purchases for 3 months after adding a YTB to cycle your tank , then there is a very high possibility that your experience in the hobby will be a good one, and that you wont have to use the ASAP forum on here ( which many people who try and get their reefs to capacity to quickly do end up doing)

its a marathon and not a sprint.

The saying I learned on this site "nothing good happens quickly in a reef tank" is a very accurate

Steve

 

+1 on the above. Take your time. There is no set amount of time it takes to cycle a tank; for some people it takes 3 months, for me it took about 2 weeks. Patience is the best thing to have. Also, you should be constantly testing for amm/trites/trates even after your cycle, for those with little experience. HTH! : )

 

i started my tank with 2 YT damsels and let it run fr 2 months before i added my sixline wrasse. With everyone on here preaching patience i did what i normaly wouldnt ,took my time, now my tank is doing great and im going to kee adding fish like one every 2 months. because of how well everything did following the advice of genius "go slow let it grow".
thanx everyone and i hope this helps duhlsusional!

 

well for me its been a month..1 week all i had in my 55 tank was 70ibs of live rock 60ibs of live sand, Week 2 i got a 6 damsels, which are still alive as we speak, this is gonna be week 6 of my tank and my diatoms are starting to clear up...took me about 3-4 weeks to cycle my tank...u have to understand everybody fishtank is different for example in the other post above for some people it takes alot longer then others...my LFS didnt believe my tank cycled...i had to bring him water to get tested...but please take your time. In the long run u be running smooth. trust me i was just like you about a month ago...and learned alot from these guys/gals they really know what they are talking about.