Help with Timeline of Actions...

[MarbleShark]

90g Saltwater Tank adventure.. when I was active on this site before I had a 55 gallon with an overflow and that lasted a while but too many moves killed it and I have been itching to get back into the swing of things...

I have been adding things and what you do not see pictured in the pictures below are

• 2 Starfire LED boxes
• Jebao/Jecod CP-40 CP40 Series Cross Flow Pump Wavemaker with Controller 2017
• Reef Octopus Classic 110INT Protein Skimmer

Ok so I have been taking things slow and finally 2 weeks ago I added water, sand, and rock. It has been running great since then. Been topping off with RO and going to do my first big water change and actually do the aquascaping this weekend... I have included some photos below on my journey.. the only thing you cannot see from the pictures is the big sump in place in the stand...

Here are my questions though...

• At what point in the "cycling" do you add the dead shrimp?
• At what point would it be ok to add the Cyno and LED for that into the sump?
• When should I start having the lights on? (I was told to keep them off during cycling.. that right?
• When should I start using the Protein Skimmer?

Any input would be appreciated.. I will post later about what I want to put in this tank as far as fish.. this will be a Reef tank.

 

[DaveK]

To answer your questions,

Add the shrimp as soon as you get SW water in the tank.

I think you mean Chaeto, short for Chaetomorpha, algae. Cyano is that very unwanted pest algae. I would do this sometime between the initial ammonia spike and the completion of the initial cycle. Id doesn't make too much difference. You could even opt not to use it at all.

After that initial cycle, you often have fairly high nitrates. Some people like to do a massive water change here to bring them down, but it not strictly necessary.

Keep the lights off until the initial cycle is complete. This helps keep unwanted algae down.

Start the skimmer once the initial cycle is complete. By starting it earlier, you usually stretch out the cycle, since you remove a lot of stuff the bacteria want to feed on. It will not hurt anything else.

You might want to invest in an ATO unit. You'll find a fully running 90 gal reef can evaporate a lot of water. Mine could come close to 1/2 a bucket a day.

 

[cracker]

Dave offers great advice. Also Consider checking out an article here by "Prow" . I consider it an excellent read on cycling a tank. Just do a search on it. Good Luck !