Start-up questions..

[Doompie]

All,

I'm currently progressing nicely in the build of my new set-up. It is going to be a 240 Liter ATS based tank with a SM100 diy. clone.
My question is when and howmuch to feed?

i know the maximums for the 900cm2 dual sided lit screen are:
12 frozen cube per day
OR
120 (!!) pinches of flake food per day
OR
600 (!!) sq cm of nori per day
OR
33.6 grams of pellet food per day

But what do i feed @ and after the cycle?

I'm going to cycle the tank with mainly "death rock", and if usefull add a couple of living rocks to it.
I was thinking of buying a couple of mussels to let them rot to get the cycle roling.

But then?

Question 2: What are the animals to start stocking? Is it better to start with adding some fish, or first mainly lps/sps/soft/.. corals? maybe seastars, schrimps...?

Thanks in advance!

[SantaMonica]

You will only need to feed what animals you have, so just feed that much. Won't be much to start, which means the scrubber won't be growing much to start.

As for what to get, it normally depends on what type of tank you want to end up with, but you can start with some zoo's and leathers for sure. For fish, you'll need to figure out what you want to end up with so that you stock them in the right order.

[Doompie]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm planning for an SPS oriented reef, off course some other nice LPS corals (lobo's and hamers fe.), but main focus on SPS..

Is there with the scrubber some sort of minimum aging for before introducing SPS corals?

According my theory it would be ok to start of with a couple of fish (couple of ocellaris + a Macropharyngodon bipartitus (fe.)) and an anamone plus a some zoo's (buttons), so that the feeding is starting and the screen will grow more so it can supply more. So when the growth is going well, introducing SPS corals, anthiasses, manderin (if possible?) and finally my dream Tang, the Acanthurus leucosternon.

Is this a good approach?
Is it also a good idea to add mussels for cycling, or better to use more life rock? (cause main scape is build up with "death rock")

I'm asking because a LOT of curious people are folowing my building treath on a dutch forum, and want to "proof" the ATS concept..
So would be nice to get a little help..

[SantaMonica]

Once the ammonia and nitrite are down, you can adding any of those as long as you know the basics of growing them. They will have instant food particles, and that's most important. As long as the mandarin has been feeding on baby copepods and not larger target-fed food, he'll have food right away. As for stocking order, that's up to you.

Adding meat to the cycle just produces more ammonia, which kills any live rock you have. If you want more live rock, don't enhance the cycle.

[Doompie]

Thanks SantaMonica, that's the info I was looking for!
Keep everyone posted in my build diary..