First Inhabitants

The next task was to create mountains and valleys in the tank. Scraping the tank took quite a bit of effort because of the height and the long forgotten ladder we bought finally found its use. Bigger sized rocks were introduced first and gradually stacked to create as many cleverages and shelter for the fishes. The rocks were arranged such that chances of collapsing were minimal. More rocks were placed in the sump for biological filter where the bacterial could colonize. After an hour spent just to scrape the rockwork, the mini mountains finally took shape.... Good enough for a start for now and a fish only with live rocks aka FOWLR.

In the evening, we picked up 1 fresh prawn from Giant during our weekly grocery shopping. The prawn was thrown into the tank and left to rot to jumpstart the biological cycle required to sustain life inside the tank. The bacterial will help to breakdown the harmful ammonia toxic to any life fishes into nitrite and then finally to nitrate which fishes can tolerate. The prawn turned red overnight as if it was cooked and could fool everyone to eat it if I placed it onto a plate. Tested the water for ammonia using a test kit and indeed it showed some reading. The prawn slowly started to disintegrate and I think it would be better to remove it before the smell becomes unbearable. Waited for 2 more days and tested the water again. NH4- undetectable, NO2- undetectable, NO3- trace amount. Seems like the cycle is completed and the bacterial were ready for fish loading. Forums usually recommends cycle duration of 2-3 months for the bacterial to establish themselves, but I suppose since I am re-using the rocks from the old tank setup, these rocks are matured enough with sufficient bacterial and hence my short cycle time.

Hippy! Time to introduce the very first inhabitants. They should be hardy enough considering they survived the grilling car temperature under the afternoon sun and dying for a decent environment than the miserable red pail.

So let me introduce the pioneers fishes were the Twin Tigers...

They started darting around upon realized into the tank. The remaining fishes followed the next day, little blue damsel, green chromis, cleaner shrimps, sand shifter to gradually load the tank. These inhabitants were left in the tank for another week to allow the bacterial to further multiply and cope with the increasing fish waste and ammonia produced. The week was especially long before the weekend and then the fun begins again! We went down to a fish shop in Bedok and came back with a pair of Nemo, black/white damsel, yellow tail damsel, bicolor dottyback. All supposing small hardy fishes and cheap to start off.

The tank still looks pretty empty and dull. But few months down the road, it is going to transform from this lifeless rock scapping into a reef tank, with corals swaying in motion with the wave and more exotic fishes happily swimming around. But this requires the tank to mature to a certain level so have to be very patient.