Fowlr

[jc]

I have a 180g fowlr tank with 45 pounds of LR and a wet-dry with a asm g2 skimmer. The tank cycled alone and the LR cycled in a seperate container. Last thursday they were both done cycling and I put them together. I waited 24 hours and all the test were at zero. I added a 2" angel on sat. and a 2" tang with a cleaner shrimp on monday. Can I add an algae package from reeftopia and add it on thursday? The package has 100 Turbo Snail, 100 Small Blueleg Hermits,48 Cerith Snai, 12 Nassarius Snails and 4 Emerald Crabs. I checked the test today and zero ammonia and nitrite. Is it too soon to add all these inverts? I know that you can add more inverts than fish to a cycled tank, but how many would be too much?

[cpreefguy]

That is quite a clean up crew! As long as your parameters are good, go for it. The clean up crew wont add any stress to your system.Your cleaner shrimp will be a good indicator as it is also an invert.

[hobogato]

the only potential problem i see down the road is a buildup of nitrates. with that small amount of liverock, and no fuge or deep sand bed (unless you have one and forgot to mention it), your nitrogen cycle will have a hard time with the last step of eliminating nitrate. it may be testing as zero now, but when you increase your bioload, you will want to keep close tabs on your nitrates.

[GaryP]

I agree with hobogato. I think nitrates have the potential of becoming a problem. Some inverts, and especially snails, can be very sensitive to nitrates. Also, with as little LR as you have in that system, I could see a problem with small ammonia and nitrite spikes. You may never even see these in a test. They may go away fairly quickly. The spikes may not be large enough to kill your critters but may cause enough stress to leave them suseptible to some secondary problems like Ich.

You didn't mention a sand bed. How deep of a sand bed do you have?

[jc]

Sand bed is only about 1". Right now the fish in the system are relatively small. The wet dry is full of bioballs so I think that mixed with the LR should be fine for a while. I do plan on adding a 2' x 1' fuge with cheato and maybe a dsb. I also have 15 lbs of base rock mixed in with the LR, hopefully that will be seeded and help with the bioload. I may skip the dsb because I had one once and it went bad. It gave off a rotten smell. I got rid of it and just kept the fuge with LR rubble and the cheato. My nitrates never went back up.

[hobogato]

as long as you keep your phosphates down, the cheato should grow like crazy and take care of your nitrates.