It's like building Rome!

[Frankie Marble]

Hi everyone, I've been on a long road to get to the point I'm am at right now.

A quick history of my 72g now front build..... Started a week before Christmas with my plan on paper. Just after the new year I began to build the furniture that the DT sits on & sump sits within. Stand complete, now months of research & more research of equipment & live stock. I decided that the best route for me to go is to build my own sump/refugium being I love building things. Lol..... My cuz was in PA for a weekend & stopped by That Fish Place & picked up a 40g breeder...... Perfect! I found a plastics supplier in Manhattan that had great prices on acrylic & they had black.(I wanted black for refugium). During this process I was also cleaning about 200lbs of old fiji rock. Every 3 days water change for about 4 weeks.

The list goes on & I could babble about this for hours..... The point of my post is that I am in no rush at all!! I am all about doing things the right way. I ordered all of the equipment & most of what I need over the 6 months of this build. This past weekend was when I made a salt mix & started the cycle.

I used 80lbs of Carib-sea aragalive fiji pink sand in the display tank, with just about 90lbs of dry rock. (Didn't use all I prepared) the salt I am using is Red Sea Coral pro & I mixed just under a 1/2 cup per gallon into RO/DI water. In the fuge I put 40lbs of Carib-Sea Aragalive olite, along with 10lbs of rubble rock.

Mixed it all up & pumped it into the tank. Running the pumps on the DT & protein skimmer, basically as it would be running normally. Today I tested the water for the first time & now I'm confused. Lol

Everything is perfect.... Sg is 1.026, ph is 8.2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate 0ppm.

Was it too soon to test. Should I be waiting for some sort of spike? Or did the sand & salt give me the bacteria needed to get my levels good?

Anyone who actually hung in there to read this far I thank you..... & if u have any input on where I'm at, please I'm more then interested to hear.

Thanks in advance for any info

Frankie

 

[greenstreet.1]

Wait and let it cycle it's not done yet. A spike may happen. I let mine cycle for three months with water change every two weeks. I still do water change every two weeks.

 

[Frankie Marble]

Oh yeah I'm def gonna wait, my plan was 8 weeks. I'll be going away mid July so I didn't want any live stock before then.

What do u think with the water changes? 10% or more?

 

[greenstreet.1]

I wa doing 10% tank is a 75gal RR but then I was told by a very good person that I should be doing 25% so I stuck to that.

 

[Frankie Marble]

I can do 25%..... Prob better off. When u finally did add live stock what was the first thing u added fish or coral?

 

[oh207]

Did you add a bacteria source to the tank? Dr. Tims is good or if you want to, you can place a shrimp from the supermarket in there.

 

[lnevo]

You definitely need an ammonia source. Get a shrimp from supermarket. When ammonia and nitrite are 0 and you have some nitrate you are good. I would wait on water change until you see nitrates. Then you can start water change to get them back down. Once you have nitrate you can remove shrimp and add some livestock going slowly of course.

 

[Frankie Marble]

Awesome..... Thanks for the tips guys & I'll be sure to go slow.

 

[TommyP]

+1 on adding some sort of an ammonia source. You added perfect water and dry rock that had no die off so when you tested everything is going to read zero. So yea - a little too early to test. You can grab a raw shrimp, throw it in some pantyhouse and toss it in the tank (where you can reach it). Test your tank every other day that's what I did or you can even do weekly. When you see ammonia build up leave it. don't do a water change until you see nitrates. Ammonia>Trites>trates then you water change. When you see it done, your cycle is over then add a fish.

 

[TommyP]

Pics!!!!!!!!!

 

[Frankie Marble]

I have one pic for now. I can upload a some more in a couple days.

 

[Frankie Marble]

Thanks again. Tommy P good idea with the stocking. I was a little reluctant throwing a shrimp on the tank. Lol would it work the same if it was in the sump?

 

[lnevo]

Tank looks awesome. Sump looks great. The shrimp would do fine either place i think. As long as it breaks down and decays.

 

[oh207]

Looks great. I really like your sump. The shrimp in the sump works fine. But if you are running that skimmer all the time then it would be best if it's in your main tank. Hide it away in the back where it's out of sight.
Btw, make sure your rocks are secure; esp the 2nd one from the right.

 

[Frankie Marble]

Thanks for the positive feed back!! I put a lot of thought & time into this..... And no worries oh207, I drilled the rock & set them with 1/2" pvc.....lol. I'm completely out of my mind, but I wanted to be sure the rock work wouldn't move. I'm going to post more pics in the next day or 2, being I have pictures every step of the way.

Thanks again & rest assured There will be a shrimp in a stocking in the tank by the weekend!!!

 

[tomtoothdoc]

a little tip on the stocking.....get one from a 99 cent store.....don't take your wife's nordstrom's....she won't be happy with that.
trust me i know....:headache:

 

[Frankie Marble]

Ha.... I know. She's not happy with this whole thing as it is. I think she will like it much more when the livestock goes in. But I def won't use her stockings. Lol

 

[SanmanReefer]

Did you add a bacteria source to the tank? Dr. Tims is good or if you want to, you can place a shrimp from the supermarket in there.

+1 on Dr. Tim's. I used that on my new tank 2 months ago. Also Probidio, been using that for a few years.

 

[rsinanan415]

Tagging along, looking great! Going to turn my 72 bow around soon into saltwater. Keep the pics coming!!

 

[greenstreet.1]

Take the lights off. That's one of the mistakes I made.