I do have concerns about adding tangs to tanks that aare not large enough. The tanks dimensions were not given which is why i brought this up really. Then again it does house an oscar so i guess its not that small
I really dont recomend tangs for any tank that is smaller than 90gallon (US gallons) These are open water reef swimmers that have HUGE swiming areas each day.
After reading the comments made above it just proves even more to me that there are no hard and fast set rules in this hobby.
I personally would not go for the gradual approach of adding a bit of live sand and then waiting etc, then the live and waiting etc. It obviously works so i wont kock it at all
My method is to add live sand and more importantly the liverock. as much as can be afforded, well cured and froma very repuatable dealer.
The reason for this is because you will have alrteady got the precious bacteria needed for life in your system to thrive on.
If you have well cured live rock then your tank WILL NOT cycle. it ready for fish within 24 ours... not alotof fish, perhaps a clown etc (depending on size of course).
If you add the liverock as has been mentioned above then leave it for weks then you might be doing more harm than good IMO. The live rock being added will be rich in denitrifying bacteria. If this liverock is then left with nothing to feed upon then the bacteria will decline in numbers and thus the bioload decreases.
After a week or more of no nutrients being added to help the bacteria, you will find that the levels of bioload are very low indeed. And that in itself partially explains why people then have to add stock very slowly so the weakened bioload can recover.
With a fully stocked bioload on liverock, fish, inverts can be added quickly.
Dont get me wrong, there are bonuses and penalties for both methods.
With the slow approach method, you will have a beter chance of spotting and maintaining stability in the early setupstage. Even with fully cured liverock, new tanks will still go through a stabilisation stage where various algeas and creatures will fight for dominanace (on a microscopic level). By going through the slowly, slowly approach you amy find that its easier to spot any problems early one and deal with them better. of course the penalties are already mentioned. Lowered bioloevels, and a very gradual addition of livestock.
With the full introduction of liverock etc. you will have full bioloads almost directly from the start, this allows a greater variety of fish etc to go ing very early on and this in itself will help with certain algea controls etc. (tang algea blennys, foxfaces are all great algea eaters).
However, the downside is that you will need large cleanup crews frmo the start.. large bioloads, large fish additions will mean large waste etc. so clenaup crews need to be at the ready for such an occurance. With all of this your water will still be trying to stablise. During this time you get the inevitable diatoms algeas and Cyano bacteria growths. these can seem to be more proliferant due to the larger amount of waste in the water (especially if the cleanup crew is not enough).
These are just 2 ways of appraoching the setup. there are as many otherways i am sure as you can imagine. Most of all remember this. What works for 1 person may well not work for another.
Hope this helps.
