Adding Fish And Live Rock Placing

[psycho-killer]

does it really make a big diffrence if i place live rock ontop of the substrate ?

i have had diatom algae for a bit more than a week and my tests

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
phosphate 0.1 added another bag of rowaphos..

i only have 4 fish in my current smaller tank but would like to move them

1x powder brown
1x powder blue
1x purple tang
1x cleaner shrimp
1x boxer shrimp
2x monkey shrimp

few snails and crabs

water seems fine to move.. do i have your vote ? other tanks is 6months old this one is about 2 months

 

[dilbert]

The only reason I know not to place live rock on top of the sandbed is stability when having burrowing species.

I think you could start adding the fish to that tank but I would do it one or two fish after another with a week difference or so. It depends on how much live rock you have as the live rock will shelter the most part of the nitrifying bacteria. In salt water they develop even slower than in freshwater and fish will add much bioload to the tank.

The fish might be quite hardy when it comes to ammonia and nitrite spikes but the invertebrates are relatively senisble to ammonia over all so I wouldn't stress this too much. My guess is that with 2.0 ppm ammonia the cleaner shrimps could die within an hour.

 

[Lynden]

Actually this isn't for sure. I had hermits crawling around long after all my fish were dead when my tank crashed (due to ammonia spike); also, when the power goes out, fish will often die quicker than corals. The reason being is that the inverts have a lower metabolism (generally).