stocking help

[reef_dude76]

I just setup my 20 gallon nano and it looks great (will try to post some pics). I used precured LR that I got from my LFS as well as some LS culture, I did this in an attempt to reduce die off and cycle time. Right now I have an Ocellaris clown, some scarlet reef hermits, and some margarita snails. Lighting is two 55W PC one daylight, one actinic on a 10 hour photo period.

My question, I have been doing some thinking/research and was trying to come up with a good order for stocking the tank. It has been over 8 years since I setup my last reef (it was up and running this long and did well till I had to tear it down for relocation purposes) and I can't remember the order that I stocked the inhabitants. My main concern is not adding too much too fast and crashing the system. Thus, I will be checking water parameters until the tank is cycled and appropriately aged to handle the bioload.

[reef_dude76]

Also, should you do water changes during the break in cycle or will this mess up the tank cycle? As I recall, you don't do anything as the tank is cycling to allow for the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite to rise and fall naturally as the bacteria populations are established. Then start with water changes?

[Henry22]

yeah your right,once the cycle is over i would wait just another week in case of a random spike and hten you can start with water changes. BTW, why do you have clown when its cycling?

[reef_dude76]

The clown is there for a couple of reasons. One I hate looking at a tank of live rock only. Two, to produce some waste to jump start the cycle (if there will be one, the LR was pretty clean that I got with minimal visually obvious live anthing on it). And three, I'm checking ammonia daily, so far after a week no ammonia at all, and at the first sign leathal levels he will get moved to another "established tank" until the cycle is over.