Fish or Corals first?

[QuAcKeR]

I'd like to have 1 or 2 fish to live amongst my corals... is there any benefit to adding one before the other? I was thinking that it is safer to add your fish first and make sure the tank conditions are still holding steady before you add corals (assuming they are the more delicate residents).

My 10g is holding steady.. clear water, good conditions... just live rock and one or two TINY hitchhikers. So... which would you add next? Fish, Corals, or a "clean up crew" such as crabs/snails/starfish (is this needed now or eventually)?

[bamann345]

I would deff. go with coral first. I have a 6 gallon with all coral and no fish, not sure I am going to put one in. What type of coral. I would think that corals are a little bit hardier than fish are, I could be wrong though.

Do you have algea for a clean-up-crew to eat? If so add a couple snails an/or crabs. I let my tank run for a good month after the cycle finishhed before I added anything, but I am sure you can add stuff a lot sooner.

QuAcKeR did you come over to my house for the Nano meeting?

Hope this helps some!

[QuAcKeR]

I have algea all over about half of my live rock... lots of dark green grass (hair algea?) and bubble agea growing in a few places. I thought perhaps a snail or two would help out with that.

I'm hoping to add some mushroom and polyp corals for starters. My LR has been in the tank for almost 3 weeks now. I added a damsel last week that died, but I think it was a heat issue (which is now fixed).

Didn't make it to the first Nano meeting, but definitely planning on the second!! (in Sept?)

[bamann345]

EKK! Stay far away from damsels!!!! Once they are in, they are a pain to get out!!

There are many mebers of the Atlanta Reef Club that will sell/give you most any coral you want, thats what I did! I have stocked my whole tank for less than $50. Zoos are very good stater corals, and there is too much xenia going around, people flush it...

The nano meetings are deff. worth going to! I am unable to go to the sept. one, I leave for school friday.....

[Rick O]

I would not add corals or fish as long as you're having algae problems. Fish will only make the problem worse. Uneaten fish food and fish waste will fuel the algae. Corals may be overgrown by algae and choked out. Plus if the problem gets worse you may have to yank the rock for manual removal of the algae. You can go ahead and add a clean up crew now. Turbo snails are excellent hair algae eaters.

[ckreef]

Cleanup crew would be good. But I think I would yank the LR now and clean it up really good (hard bristle toothbrush and tweezers). LR should be able to handle that with only a very bare minimum of a mini cycle if any.Then add the cleanup crew to keep it that way.

I yank my LR (with corals attached and all) approx every 3 weeks to give the tank a really good cleaning. The LR (and corals) are out of the tank from 5 - 30 min depending on the procedure I use and how much cleaning I do.

[QuAcKeR]

Thanks for the replies! I'll scrub down the rock covered in hair algae (it looks like an out of control lawn) and add some snails.

[horsehunter]

I added a lawnmower blenny to my 20 gal a week ago and he has really gon to town on my algae. I like this muppet looking guy so much I may have to import algae for him.

In a book I was reading this week the author said corals benifited from going in a tank that had fish for at least 6 months

[QuAcKeR]

What happens when a fish like that runs out of algea? Can you feed them other things or do you have to generate algae or get rid of the fish?

[MiddletonMark]

That's sort of the nano-quandry ... any good grazer fish has only limited resources. Thus maybe some turbos, possibly an emerald crab ... though think/ask about the latter more. Some people have good experiences there, some don't.

I'd go for corals before fish. In a 10g, even a single fish is a big increase in the bioload ... where I don't feel corals to be. Plus getting a coral or two in the next few weeks will let you feel like things are getting stocked yet allow the tank to stabilze some more.

Snails are #1, I'd go with a few corals like you suggested ... and wait a bit on fish. 3 weeks cycling is still sorta young, provided your nitrates are not too high [and ammonia and nitrite gone] ... they'll do fine.

And, IMO, if you haul out your rock to scrub it, do a piece at a time and wait a few days. Your critter population is still somewhat young, I'd try with snails and other cleanup crew before doing much removal for scrubbing. While it probably won't make much if any cycle again, seems to me you'd lose at least a little of your critter population ... which with a new tank is pretty low. My opinion, though

[rogerthmyers]

I agree hold off on adding the corals, take care of the algae problems first, you don't want to put $ or time into corals and then, they die off b-c certain things wasn't taken care of first in the tank, I've went thru that about 4yrs ago when I sat up my first tank, I got in a hurry and lost coral and fish after fish, simply b-c I was in such a hurry...take your time take care of the algae, then get a couple of hearty fish that won't eat corals, wait a couple of weeks, then add a coral or to.

[Ray1214]

Justins tank is doing so well, and he went with corals for about 3 months before adding his redheaded goby. He had the usual cyano and hair problems but once he fixed it (ie water chemistry, nitrites, etc) they all went away but it tooks some cleaning of the live rock.

[ckreef]

If it was me i would clean all the LR at the same time and get it over with. Yes you might loose a percent of the critters population (anthropods, copepods, small feather dusters ect....) BUT there is still alot of them critters down inside the LR and you probably won't notice the difference in population.

If it was ment to be in your tank it will still be there after the LR cleaning. Short of drying out --- it's really hard to kill (read next to impossible) your LR by just doing a good scrub down.

On my big tank i actually use a Stainless Steel Wire brush to scrub LR if needed. I never worry about the coraline, critters or anything else -- It will all come back and usually quicker than you can imagine.