Let's watch my new tank grow

[certainti420]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I do have a protein skimmer although it is nothing elaborate It is only a sea clone 100 gal skimmer but I was told it would work well until I can afford a better model. I dosed my tank tonight with some Kent marine buffer. I added about 7ml to the tank. I will test tomorrow to see if need more.

[Stacef]

I do not havce a lot of time to read, but am subscribing so I can come back and read later!! Looks great though. Keep up the wonderful work!

[certainti420]

Well I think my tanks cycle is coming along beautifully

Temp stays around 77-78
Nitrites dropped a bit reading 1-2ppm
Nitrates spiked at 10ppm
Ammonia really dropped today 0-0.25ppm
pH still low 7.8 added more buffer

[Craig Manoukian]

Good job, nice start!

[certainti420]

I like to keep you guys posted on whats going on with my tank. That way if there is anything out of ordinary maybe you all will catch it since most of you have much more experience than I do.

Test results for today

Temp 77.0
Nitrate 5 ppm
Nitrite 1-2 ppm
Ammonia 0 ppm
pH 8.0 (added more buffer)

[certainti420]

Well I must have a really boring thread (No one stopped to say hi yesterday)

Well anyways I am a little confused about my tank's cycle. I thought that during your cycle your ammonia drops first which it did, then your nitrites will drop then your nitrates will drop. So here is the thing, I tested my water today and saw that my ammonia was at 0 (as it should be) my nitrites are still reading around 1-2 ppm but my nitrates have dropped to 0 already. Does this sometimes happen. Should I do a water change? Or am I where I should be?

Let me know thanks everyone

[nikkipigtails]

WELCOME! Your aquascaping looks awesome...I wouldn't change a thing. You've come to the right place for advice and karma to you for chiming in early instead of when you encounter a problem. I'm looking forward to watching your tank grow.

[Craig Manoukian]

Take your water to your LFS and have thenm verify your readings. What test kit are you using and how old is it. Reagents have a definite shelf life.

[tbittner]

I can't think of any way that your nitrItes would be up and your nitrAtes would drop to zero. And nitrAtes don't just disappear, they have to be removed with water changes. At least until you have a fairly mature tank (1 year old) and you have something in the system to remove nitrAtes, such as macro algae.

hmmm.....

Unless you have a bunch of algae or cyano growing....

[certainti420]

Originally Posted by Craig Manoukian

Take your water to your LFS and have thenm verify your readings. What test kit are you using and how old is it. Reagents have a definite shelf life.

I use aquarium pharmaceuticals I bought it from petsmart like 2 weeks ago. My LFS uses the same test kit as I do I compared tests on Saturday with them my tests log matched what their tests showed. So I dont think my tests are bad. So I dont know whats going on. I will do a water change tomorrow. So that will probably help.

I just hope that my tank doesn't end up like the

[althea2you]

good luck! hope you figure it out! just stopped by to see how it was going!

[tbittner]

Looking back to the beginning of your thread, you DID say that it's been cycling for 3 weeks before you started this thread. Please test again and let us know what results you get this time.

Your tank should be at the end of cycle process now so weird things can happen. Do you have any algae or cyano growing in your tank? Do you have a CUC in the tank and are they eating it?

[certainti420]

No there is nothing in the tank other than 20 lbs of black tahitian moon sand seeded with 20 lbs of live sand. All of that was added at the initial set up of the tank approx. 5 april, 2008 I then added 25 lbs of live rock. This addition was made last wednesday 23 April (I think). The rock was precured But it was out of water for 2 days (shipped on mon arrived on wed). I know there was some die off from the dry shipping so I cleaned my rock, added it to the tank and am letting it cycle. It has been in for about a week now. So this may just be the nitrites descending from its spike and the nitrates will soon follow. But I know the I got a reading off of them a few times last week. So my plan is to do about 15% water change tomorrow and just wait and see what happens There is nothing alive in there now (I mean nothing that I paid a lot of money for and will be pissed if it dies). I am interested to see how this goes. I will keep you posted on my test results and any other changes. I do have one question though. What makes the best clean up crews? And how many species should i get I think if I start with turbo snails, a few shrimp, and and maybe a couple stars, I also think a nudibranch will be cool (one of the blue and black ones). But let me know what you all think.

Thank you for everything

[tbittner]

I really like the mexican turbo snails, simply because of their voracious appetite. Brittle stars consume a lot of waste too but I'd wait a little while before putting one of those in, let your tank mature a bit and give you a chance to get your top off routine down. Starfish need VERY stable salinity.

For crabs, I've always heard that scarlet legs are the most reef safe but I recently read about a couple of them killing a fire shrimp.

Urchins are great members of the CUC too.

[certainti420]

Originally Posted by tbittner

I really like the mexican turbo snails, simply because of their voracious appetite. Brittle stars consume a lot of waste too but I'd wait a little while before putting one of those in, let your tank mature a bit and give you a chance to get your top off routine down. Starfish need VERY stable salinity.

For crabs, I've always heard that scarlet legs are the most reef safe but I recently read about a couple of them killing a fire shrimp.

Urchins are great members of the CUC too.

Thanks Terry,
How many snails should I get (I was thinking 15-20), maybe 2 or 3 shrimp, and a nudibranch, do I need better lighting for these inverts or will I be able to get away with what I have for now ( I cant yet afford the MH or T5 HO lighting, still saving ).