how long should I wait?

[pacheco]

I just put in 2 clown fish and 10 hermit crabs three days ago. parameters are all good who long should I wait to add any thing else?

 

[midiman]

Hard to be definitive without knowing how big your tank is and what's in it in terms of LR etc. It's a good idea to proceed slowly when adding new livestock, in order to allow the biofilter to catch up with the increased demand.

Are you using a QT for new fish?

 

[lando]

How old is the tank? How big is it? Any LR? What type of filtration? In a new tank, livestock should be added very slowly at first. I would wait four weeks or so to make sure your biological filtration is built up enough to handle the increase in bioload.

 

[pacheco]

I have a 120g tank with about 60lb of lr wet/dry filter with bio balls. tank is just 4weks old.

 

[pacheco]

oh yes i just set up a qt atnk but having trouble stablizing it

 

[austinsdad]

What's in the QT tank? If no ammonia source to feed the bacteria you established when you cycled it, that could be the culprit for the instability.

By the way, kudos for using a QT tank. That's two folks tonight with new setups I've run across tonight.

 

[lando]

have a 120g tank with about 60lb of lr wet/dry filter with bio balls. tank is just 4weks old.

that is not a ton of biological filtration. It is a great start though. Just add things very slowly and you should be okay. Current water parameters?

 

[pacheco]

water paramerters

my main tank 120g sg .024 ph8.2 ammonia 0 nitrite 0 natrate 20 temp 78-79f but my qt tank ammonia is 1 and nitrite is .50 can't seem to get it down. only 10g with 7lb lr in it I took the water from main tank to get it started but it just went haywire.

 

[ASpec]

SG is a bit high (for a FOWLR) tank in my opinion. Consider dropping it down to 1.021 to 1.022.

Did you even get a ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate spike? You should have seen the ammonia spike first, followed by nitrite and nitrate. If you did not your tank is not fully cycled.

Was the LR added at setup or just recently added? What was the source of your LR as well?

 

[pacheco]

My main tank seems ok will drop sg a bit. the qt tank s the problem I got lr from lfs they said it was cured (?) put it in tank added water from main tank and it just went haywire.