Jejton's Tank Thread

[jejton]

Ok so I got my refractometer, tests kits and tweaked the plumbing. I think that the skimmer is finally adjusted. Had to plug the venturi with some cotton to lower the noise and walla - it helped with the water level too.

My test results are as follows:
SG 1.025
Temp - 79/80
pH - 8.0
Nitrate - between 50 and 100
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - dont currently have the test kit
Didnt bother testing anything else yet.

So does it look like I might be at the end of my cycle or do I need to test for nitrites to confirm?

If I did finsih my cycle, should I then do a water change? When can I start adding cleanup crew? Being that I've been running it without lights, algae hasn't started growing yet.

As soon as I get my new camera ( ended up returning the Nikon as it was way too slow ) I will post new pics.

I still have to buy a mag cleaner, auto topoff and add a manifold to the return ( to run the phosban reactor though for now I will just use a maxijet I have laying around ) and some lockline to the end of the return.

 

[jejton]

:bump:

 

[jejton]

 

[jejton]

This is with the two PC actinics on. I haven't turned on the MH yet because I have to clear up the electrical mess behind the tank and also dont have my ATO yet. I still need to figure out a better way of hiding the PH's. The sump also sprung a leak, again, so I took all the rock and water out and let it continue curing in a rubbermaid with a pump in there ( since the water is not being skimmer by the overflow, a film started building up on top which is what you see in the picture ) . I picked up some Weldon and will try to get to that tomorrow.
So what do y'all think ? Suggestions welcome.

 

[KathyC]

Where to start...
if your nitrates have already climbed and are now dropping, then your nitrite is probably at zero, but getting a test kit would be best.

Take one of the powerheads and point it up toward the surface to at least get some oxygen exhange going..that film up there is not helping anything and the bacteria in the tank does need oxygen.
I'd also drop a few small pieces of flake food in there as bacteria does need something to eat

I like the way you've done the aquascaping! You've left yourself room to add a small island or two on the sandbed and those always look nice and are a great place to put more invasive corals!

Can we assume you are going to put that heater back in the sump once you reglue it?

Why are you adding a manifold to run the phosban reactor? Why not just run it off the Maxijet 400? Easy to control that way and it must be run with very low flow.
Get your lights going so you can build up some algae for the CUC to eat..maybe add them in another week or so..just a few to start with since Marco rocks don't come in with things growing on them...

Looks great!! Best of luck with it!!!
oh...the beauty of your reef and fish will make the powerheads almost invisible

 

[jejton]

Kathy - Thanks for the help and advice. I have the nitrite kit and will test later today. I will adjust the powerhead as per your suggestion. The heater will be going into the sump. I was hoping to run everything off my main pump - it definately has the capability - to keep electric usage and cords down as much as I can. I have been adding in flake foods and keeping the lights going. I hope to start seeing algae soon since the tank was running with the live rocks in the sump for a few weeks and will be again once the sump is fixed.

 

[Bob 1000]

Are you using a salifert test kit?(for nitrates)
Why are your nitrates so high, didn't you just start this system???
Did you mean nitrites???

 

[KathyC]

Bob..take a breath! lol
Read the whole thread, he is just finishing up cycling..so yes his nitrates might still be up there..as long as they are on their way down, he's fine

 

[Bob 1000]

I've never had nitrates go up then down as a part of the nitrogen cycle... I was under the impression that the nitrates do go up as the tank runs(over the first year or so) but I've never seen nitrates come up and go down on there own... Don't they come down with water changes?? From what I've been reading on this thread .. This tank was just fully set up in february...no???

 

[KathyC]

He'd just put the rocks into the tank on 3/13.

 

[Bob 1000]

He'd just put the rocks into the tank on 3/13.

Yes, and the nitrates are that high???:scratchch:scratchch

 

[KathyC]

Hey toots, I didn't take the readings
I just suggested he get a nitrite kit to make sure those are at zero.

btw - the rocks are Marco rocks, not 100% sure what is invloved in curing those but IIRC they take longer to cure for some odd reason, nbut I could also be wrong about that as I don't have them... :spin:

RIF

 

[Bob 1000]

Oh okay, thanks Kathy.. It just seemed a little weird(the levels after such a short time) to me, sorry if I upset you... Please don't beat me..lol

 

[jejton]

Bob - Those were the readings I got on Salifert tests. HOF didnt have the nitrite test so I couldnt test for it but I picked up an API locally and will post results tonite for all the tests.

From what I've read there are two prevailing theories regarding cycling.
1.) Once ammonia is introduced into the system ( either through some sort of additive or from the breakdown of organic material such as found in rock, fish food, piece of shrimp or damsel's excretion ), a certain set of bacteria can start utilizing that for metabolism and then produce nitrite as waste. A second set of bacteria then utilize the nitrite and produce nitrate as waste. Now one idea is to let ammonia and nitrite reach zero at which point nitrate - the end product - will have accumulated to a high point and you do a water change to reduce it. Then you can add livestock.

2.) The 2nd theory states that you do not do a water change but rather let algae - micro or macro, depending on who you ask - utilize the nitrates as a metabolite until your nitrates are low enough, at which point add your livestock.

Then there those who recommend using a DSB to establish a population of bacteria that can use the nitrate as an energy source.

I imagine that all three ideas work just fine and it is a matter of individual circumstance and preference which to use. Being that the majority of my rock is Marco ( which is dried rock containing a lot of dead organic material ), and the live is all sitting in the sump hopefully seeding the tank, I think that once I establish zero nitrites and ammonia, I will just do a 50% water change and add some cleaning crew ( and yes I will feed them since the microalgae hasn't been established yet ). I will wait a bit longer before adding fish, to make sure I dont get a second cycle and the inverts are settled.

Sound good?

 

[meschaefer]

sounds fine.

elevated Nitrates are nothing to be concerned about, and are a part of the nitrogen cycle. You are correct ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate which will obviously result in higher nitrate levels. In time your rock will perform nitrate reduction, breaking it down into nitrogen and oxygen.

You could do a water change, but I bet that you will see your nitrate level drop off pretty quickly.

 

[jejton]

Test Results tonite: Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 25-50 ( I have a hard time picking a shade with this test ).

I drove to Westbury to get some Weldon ( freaking applicator was no good ) and hopefully succesfully sealed the sump. Will test it tomorrow.

I'm starting to see a layer of fuzzy crap on my rock. I'm not sure if its the start of the diatom bloom or just organic crap and sand particles stuck to each other and the rock but it wasnt there originally.

Just found out I wont be at the swap. Hopefully someone local to me is going and can pick up some frags for me.

 

[jejton]

Update - CUC added a week or so ago. It consists of a number of electric blue and scarlet hermit crabs, nassarius, turbo, cerith and nerite snails and one orange lipped conch ( HOF and Cheetah). Friday I added two green feather dusters, a cleaner shrimp and porcelain crab (Aquahut). Also added, for variety, some live sand and cheato for the fuge ( HOF and Cheetah ). Finally, some frags - GSP frag I think ( it was labeled clove polyps on the bag ) which was freebie from HOF with my order ( great guys to work with ) and from a LIRA member - frag of Tyree leather or toadstool I forgot and small toadstool. The last two haven't yet opened but they were only added a couple of hours ago. Everything else seems to be doing well. The only one I haven't seen for a few days is the porcelain crab. I feed the tank either some flakes, sinking pellets or a cube of defrosted frozen food once every 2 or 3 days. One feather duster has been out the whole time but the other didnt come out since I added it to the tank. When I fed the tank today ( and adjusted its position and the PH's ) it came out and hasn't gone back since.

My plumbing kinks seem to be worked out though I still need to put together a manifold for the return. In the meantime I'm running a reactor with carbon off of a small maxijet like pump. Electrician will hopefully show up as scheduled tomorrow so that I can then hook up my ATO, fuge light and put my MH's on a timer. For now the MH are plugged into a non-GFCI outlet ( originally put in for a fridge which we couldnt get into the basement ) so I'm afraid to leave it plugged in for long time which means only the 2 CF's are running for full period.

Lastly I have to setup my quarantine. Ideally I'd like to quarantine everything including corals and other inverts. I dont want to risk adding any unwanted hitchikers with the corals. How long can corals be kept under subpar light?

Anyway I have to start thinking about fish so this is where I could use suggestions. I'd like the following:
Pair of CB true percula's
Trio of PJ cardinals
Pair of jawfish and/or shrimp goby along with shrimp

I'm open to suggestions for the rest. I'd like to stick with smaller fish like gobies, blennies, etc. so that I can see more natural behavior and give them room. For a centerpiece fish I'm thinking along the lines of a flame angel ( i know the risk ) or a reef-safe wrasse ( I have a hood ). So what do you all think? Pics will come up tomorrow. I'm too tired to upload them and I haven't figured out how to post them directly from my memory card ( if you know how pray tell ). Sorry for the long winded post. This is what happens when I'm tired.

 

[jejton]

I picked up a pair of PJ Cardinals from Aquahut today. They had a third but he had some tattered fins and wouldnt eat so I left him there. I'd like to pick up a third though. Right now they are in quarantine and seem to be doing ok though its only been a few hours. I also finally noticed 'pods crawling on my glass. Not sure what type but they are barely visible to the naked eye. Then there are also those green tufts on the glass that I posted elsewhere about. Both feather dusters come out regularly as does the one in my fuge. Still havent hooked up the ATO. I think I'm missing a bracket and have to write to them.

 

[jejton]

Its been a while so I figure an update is due. The bryopsis is gone but I have been battling what I think is cyano. I do my best to get out some manually and have added a phosban reactor. The outbreak started when my skimmer went offline for a couple of weeks since the pump had to go back for repair. I am currently running phosban in the reactor and carbon in a bag that hangs on the drain in place of the filter sock until I can get a manifold together. My biggest problem however is heat. The tank runs from 82-84 most days but goes as high as 86 on really hot days. I leave the hood's front open and have a fan in the hood and over the sump. I plan on adding a second fan this week and have put a fan in one of the windows to suck out warm air from the basement. I also added an ATO and used 2-part to bring up my calc and alk and now add pickling lime to my ATO and installed LED moonlights.

Livestock - In the DT I have 2 PJ Cardinals, 2 cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, one long-spined urchin, one porcelain crab and the usual cleaners and a conch. I have one TR true percula and 2 PJ cardinals in the quarantine. I'm hoping to get a pair out of the four PJs and then trade the other two. I also bought two small peppermints to help with a small aptaisia outbreak that also started when the skimmer went offline ( I suspect they came with a small piece of LR I bought from someone who was tearing down his tank ). I've added a bunch of frags that I got from MR and LIRA members - kenya tree, GSP, monti cap, orange digita, anthelia/xenia ( there was confusion as to the idea but we leaned towards anthelia ) - this was a freebie but hasnt been doing so well in my tank so I'm experimenting with placement, tyree toadstool, finger leather ( I cant remember what this was so help me with the id ), frogspawn, three different types of mushrooms, 3 small frags of zoas, capnella ( though the seller now thinks its Devil's hand ), Bali green slimer, pulsing sinularia ( I dont think thats the correct ID as it is an SPS but the seller is adamant - regardless its almost completely dead either because I left it in the bag overnight or my tank was too drastic a change. There's some tissue and polyps left and I moved it to a lower area and am hoping it might recover ), small blue sponge, xenia ( disintegrated in the bag but there was a small piece left so I'm hoping it might recover but I will probably pick up another frag ), sinularia, and candy cane ( or trumpet, I keep forgetting ). The mushrooms have split already and the candy cane has also. The monti has grown about 25% and the capnella and kenyas have also grown considerabbly. I have to start measuring my corals so I can better track the progress of this tank.

My most immediate goals are to control the temperature ( if I have to I'll just buy a small AC for the whole basement because the heat killed, I think, my Russian tortoise ), organize the mess of wires hanging behind the tank ( none of the plugs or strips are on the floor, the tank is grounded and the circuits have a GFCI but I need to make it all neater), and then I plan on letting everything settle and grow before I add any more fish. The snails have been spawning constantly but I'm not sure if the eggs get eaten since i havent seen any babies and, interestingly enough, many of the corals looked their best when the skimmer was off. Anyway please share your comments and suggestions. Forgive the crappy pictures. I am having a very hard time getting good macro shots with this camera. I'm pretty sure its me and not the camera and thats another goal of mine.

 

[jejton]

Here are some photos. Eventually I will figure out how to post them properly and labelled.