Temporary livestock question

[Samppson]

Hey!

 

So currently my tank is cycling. I just have a few frags in it for now. I recently came across someone taking down their nano in my area and have agreed to purchase their corals. Its mostly LPS and softies, lots of zoas etc. I got a great deal and will help me fill out my tank much more affordably then buying all my frags at the LFS.

 

My question: He is also selling a clown pair and a pistol shrimp, Those are livestock I eventually planned on buying. Is there any easy way to temporarily keep these for a few weeks safely til my tank finishes its cycle?

 

Thanks!

[GetPsyched2124]

Are you able to get a couple pieces of his live rock from his tank? If so, putting them in a tank separate from you main that you're cycling with a few pieces of his live rock I would think would be good enough. and if you're doing frequent water changes on that temporary tank.

[A.m.P]

You could technically keep them in your main setup, but you would need to treat it like an uncycled quarantine-tank and do frequent water-changes to keep ammonia down, which might make it difficult to get your cycle to finish in the first place. (You could also just do this in a separate vessel) However the shrimp will be totally intolerant of ammonia so I'm not certain I can advise it, otherwise you could try to keep it by itself in a small separate tank or bucket and rely on dilution and large water-changes to keep things clean.

But I've never tried anything like that and would defer to someone with more experience or simply not risk it.

[Clown79]

Could you not purchase his liverock which is established and avoid a cycle all together?

 

 

[spectra]

As stated...............put live rock in and there will not be much of a cycle...........

 

Have swapped tanks many times and all  I do is move all the live rock in with new sand and new water and am good.

 

Just did my big tank a few months ago and used old and new rock and had no issues what so ever............old rock had corals on them also and all still living............

[Samppson]

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Could you not purchase his liverock which is established and avoid a cycle all together?

 

 

 

2 hours ago, spectra said:

As stated...............put live rock in and there will not be much of a cycle...........

 

Have swapped tanks many times and all  I do is move all the live rock in with new sand and new water and am good.

 

Just did my big tank a few months ago and used old and new rock and had no issues what so ever............old rock had corals on them also and all still living............

 

Oh I could do that, I wasn't sure how what would work. Maybe I will go that route.

[Samppson]

11 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Could you not purchase his liverock which is established and avoid a cycle all together?

 

 

 

10 hours ago, spectra said:

As stated...............put live rock in and there will not be much of a cycle...........

 

Have swapped tanks many times and all  I do is move all the live rock in with new sand and new water and am good.

 

Just did my big tank a few months ago and used old and new rock and had no issues what so ever............old rock had corals on them also and all still living............

I plan on just taking his live rock and swapping it out with my current mid cycle dry rock. Do you think it would be a good idea to do a decent water change right prior to adding his live rock to my tank? Or use some of his water?

[spectra]

1 hour ago, Samppson said:

 

I plan on just taking his live rock and swapping it out with my current mid cycle dry rock. Do you think it would be a good idea to do a decent water change right prior to adding his live rock to my tank? Or use some of his water?

If doing a water change I would just use fresh SW.

[Samppson]

26 minutes ago, spectra said:

If doing a water change I would just use fresh SW.

Makes sense, I am just worried because my tank is mid cycle, there is some ammonia in the water I would assume. Unfortunately due to the holidays, my test kits keep getting delayed on arriving, so I have no way to tell exactly how much ammonia is there. Thats why I was thinking a water change may be beneficial prior to adding the liverock and livestock.

[spectra]

12 minutes ago, Samppson said:

Makes sense, I am just worried because my tank is mid cycle, there is some ammonia in the water I would assume. Unfortunately due to the holidays, my test kits keep getting delayed on arriving, so I have no way to tell exactly how much ammonia is there. Thats why I was thinking a water change may be beneficial prior to adding the liverock and livestock.

Do you have a local store that could test ?

 

Also remember if you are replacing the rock your ammonia issues should go away as the new rock should not cycle.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Samppson said:

Makes sense, I am just worried because my tank is mid cycle, there is some ammonia in the water I would assume. Unfortunately due to the holidays, my test kits keep getting delayed on arriving, so I have no way to tell exactly how much ammonia is there. Thats why I was thinking a water change may be beneficial prior to adding the liverock and livestock.

Using his water will do nothing, it's all in the rocks.

 

Personally if you can't test ammonia I would add nothing to the tank. 

 

Take water from his tank, a few rocks from his tank put it in a bucket with heater and powerhead(if you have a small hob even better to add)

 

keep the livestock you purchase in the bucket while your tank cycles.

 

Essentially the bucket is a holding tank until your tank is done cycling.

 

Once you can test ammonia levels, then we can work with the next steps.

[Clown79]

53 minutes ago, spectra said:

Do you have a local store that could test ?

 

Also remember if you are replacing the rock your ammonia issues should go away as the new rock should not cycle.

Ya the ammonia that's present will still need to process though and in that process can cause die off on the liverock.

 

Its risky, especially not knowing the ammonia levels.

[Samppson]

Ah yeah, I think I am just going to take the coral. It was what I was most interested in anyways. I can work on taking them off the rock safely and placing them in the tank with my other frags while I wait for the cycle to finish. Its probably for the best, I can choose my livestock myself this way.

 

Thanks for all the help!

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, Samppson said:

Ah yeah, I think I am just going to take the coral. It was what I was most interested in anyways. I can work on taking them off the rock safely and placing them in the tank with my other frags while I wait for the cycle to finish. Its probably for the best, I can choose my livestock myself this way.

 

Thanks for all the help!

The corals are at risk being put in an uncycled tank just like fish.

 

That's why we advised avoiding a cycle by using liverock or getting a few pieces of liverock and his water and keeping it in a bucket like a makeshift tank.