Seth's RSM 500

S

Seth Nafte

Member
Hi all,
I have just finished setting up my new 500, and have started the curing process!
I got some awesome live rock (60kg), which a friend (who is a licensed collector) got for me, and i must say i am so excited with the state of the rock and the abundance of life it came with.
I did remove over 15 brittle starfish, although I'm sure there are many more (I've seen about 7 small ones still in there). The rock was so fresh that i even found a live clown goby (i have put him in my old tank and he seems quite happy)
I will post images as soon as i am allowed to, but this being my first post i believe i am limited.
So far the LR has been in for 24hr and my water parameters are as such:
Ph: 8.0
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 24.2 C
Calcium: 460
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Kh: 10 dk

I am running macro algae in the sump with a light source, as well as marine pure biological medium
I have a chiller and dosing system set up, and am dosing with calcium, magnesium and carbonate during the curing process to ensure that my levels are all maintained and hence don't have to do any major water changes until the curing process is over.

Normally i wouldn't do as such, but as the rock is riddled with frags, zeos, coralline and even a BTA, I am adamant on keep the water quality at its best. Ive found numerous varieties of slugs, cucumbers, worms and much much more!

Does anyone have experience in curing a tank with such fresh live rock that can perhaps give some insight as to how there cycle went (albeit i know every tank is different)

My concern is that as the rock is so fresh and there seems to be minimal die off, will i be inevitably be hindering myself by not producing an ammonia spike etc thus producing limited biological culture? (i have seeded the tank with some live rock from my old tank to try and implant some of my existing biological media)

looking forward to getting some feed back..

Thanks
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
welcomefish.gif

to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members
745.gif


Start a tank thread & share your tank with us so we can follow along, we love pics :dance:

You can post pics... after 5 post

I cycled my 1st tank with all uncured LR, no real difference only the time line a bit longer 4-8 weeks. It's really hard to define cured, semi-cured, fully cured unless you know the history of the LR. I would add an ammonia source like a couple raw deli shrimp then...

Start testing and watching... the Ammonia will raise then drop, followed by the Nitrites raising and then dropping, then the Nitrates will soar - once the ammonia & nitrites are gone, then do water changes to reduce nitrates.

Ammonia > Nitrite > Nitrate

Tank Cycled

If the lr was real uncured & has a good die off, the deli shrimp may not be needed, but sure can't hurt - can only help.


a great :read:

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...something-cycling-breaking-new-reef-tank.html

http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/curing_rock.asp
 
S

Seth Nafte

Member
Thanks for the welcome and response, I am ghost feeding with brine shrimp atm, i was going to move to the whole shrimp method if i didn't see an ammonia spike in the next few days.. The lr is real uncured, however it was only out of the ocean for about 8 hours before i put it in the tank...
 
S

Seth Nafte

Member
I did another test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate since ghost feeding over the last few days, but still zero's all round. My Ph keeps dropping and thus i have been using saechem marine buffer to bring it back up... i am hoping it will level out. I am finding that I perfect Kh but quite high Calcium... any thoughts?
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
on the PH

I would try to not dose... if it is 7.8---8.3 it's fine & will change through out the day lights on, lights off, even the fresh air in the room will change it some.
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
Seth Nafte said:
I did another test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate since ghost feeding over the last few days, but still zero's all round. My Ph keeps dropping and thus i have been using saechem marine buffer to bring it back up... i am hoping it will level out. I am finding that I perfect Kh but quite high Calcium... any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I am a noob and I feel like this is important and my advice may be terrible, but your situation sounds a lot like mine.

I believe my live rock went in pretty close to fully cured and I didn't experience the type of cycle most people talk about seeing. I didn't start measuring until day 3 (almost 4), but I never noticed my ammonia spiking all that high or my nitrites ever going up. I added some deli shrimp to make sure it could handle bio load, but my LFS said I cycled when I took my water in for them to test.

So, what my LFS has me doing is adding a CuC after about day 7. Then after about 2 weeks a couple of clowns (just because I wanted some fish), but NO more fish than that. Now they want me to do corals only with no more bio load for a while.

I can't speak from decades of experience, but it seems to be working fine. Your live rock situation seems similar to mine, so I thought I'd share FWIW.

You may want to check out my tank thread not only to track my experience, but more importantly read the advice I received from the experienced folks here.
 
S

Seth Nafte

Member
Thanks I appreciate the input, I'm in no rush to cycle the tank, I do have a 30g tank setup that i will transferring fish and coral from at a later stage. That setup is about 2 years old, however i find that a noon tank with no sump, or mechanical filtration other then lr and skimmer is very volatile to changes and requires a lot of attention and monitoring. In saying that, its a very stable setup and the fish and inverts are all very happy.

I put a shrimp in the tank last night, but as expected, i returned this morning to find the entire shrimp had been eaten.... mainly brittle stars and some small hermits that came on the LR.

here are some images of the sump setup and the LR... http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/Seth_Nafte/library/

Thanks for the feedback
 
S

Seth Nafte

Member
PS if anyone can identify the small sea slug/cucumber thing shown in the first pic let me know.... I've found a few of them in the tank
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
right click on your pics & select copy image url

then add it in this syntax
and it will show up

Really nice looking LR - Great start !



IMG_1132_zpsb14b4624.jpg


IMG_1113_zpsf01e45bc.jpg
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
Sorry my advice was pointless. I thought it might be. I didn't realize you had a couple years experience.

Very cool live rock!
 
S

Seth Nafte

Member
never useless! I have all the time in the world to hear other opinions... especially with reefing! there is so much to learn, and always something new!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top